"Why—why—because there are people here! I just love seeing people, Bessie, they're so interesting, because they're all so different, and you never know what they're going to say or do. And there may be someone we know here, too."
"There can't be anyone I know, Dolly."
"Oh, bother! Well, there may be someone I know, and that's the same thing, isn't it? Come on, be a sport, Bessie."
"That's what you said about going in the car with Mr. Holmes the other day, too."
"Oh, but this isn't a bit like that, Bessie."
"It might get us into just as much mischief, Dolly. No, I'm not going over there. It's silly, and it's wrong."
And this time Bessie stood firm. Despite Dolly's pleading, which turned, presently, to angry threats, she refused absolutely to go any nearer the hotel, and Dolly was afraid to venture there alone, though there was very little she was afraid to do. In her inmost heart, of course, Dolly knew that Bessie was right, and that she had had no business to trick her chum into seeming to break her promise to Miss Eleanor.
"Oh, well," she said, "I might have known that I couldn't always make you do what you don't want to do, Bessie. You're not mad at me, are you?"
Bessie, pleased by this sign of surrender, returned the smile.
"I ought to be, but I'm not, Dolly," she answered. "I think that is one of the reasons you keep on doing these things—but no one ever really does get angry with you, as they should. If someone you really cared for got properly angry at you just once for one of your little tricks, I think it would teach you not to do anything of the sort for a long time."