Edina in this mood was very attractive to Billie. She eyed her with sympathetic interest for a moment, then said curiously:
“You’ve something on your mind, Edina. Out with it!”
“I was thinkin’ about you,” returned the girl hesitantly, stammering and flushing as she spoke. “The girls you go around with don’t like me. Oh, it don’t take a microscope to see that,” with sudden bitterness, as Billie made a negative gesture. “And because you’re nice to me they—they are sort of drawing off from you, too.”
Billie was startled. In a vague way she had noticed some such thing herself. Was her friendship for Edina Tooker imperiling her popularity?
When she did not speak, Edina continued:
“You’ve been the most popular girl up here. It didn’t take a microscope for me to see that neither—either. There’s no use your sp’ilin’—spoilin’—all that for me. I’d best go back to Oklahoma, like I said.”
Billie roused herself. She laughed and her mouth compressed itself into a rather fierce straight line. This was Billie Bradley’s “fighting face.”
“I think you are wrong, Edina. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong. But if there’s a chance in the world that you’re right—then I want to know it. Don’t you see? I’d simply have to be sure!”
Edina was watching her with a half-fearful eagerness.
“Then you mean——”