"Yes! Come in here."
Rosalie drew her into the empty cloak-room and shut the door.
"You mean—they've found out the name—and everything?" Patty demanded breathlessly.
"Not quite everything, but they would have if it hadn't been for Lordy. She saved us for once."
"Lordy saved us!" There was incredulity mixed with Patty's horror. "What do you mean?"
"Well, yesterday, Mae went shopping in the village with Miss Wadsworth—and you know what kind of a chaperone Waddy makes." Patty nodded impatiently. "Anybody could fool her. And Mae, right under her very nose, commenced a flirtation with the Soda-Water Clerk."
"Oh!" said Patty hotly. "How perfectly horrid!"
"She didn't care anything about it, really. She was just trying to put the principles of the S. A. S. into practice."
"She might at least have picked out somebody decent!"
"Well, he is quite decent. He's engaged to the girl at the underwear counter in Bloodgood's, and he didn't want to be flirted with a bit. But you know how persistent Mae Mertelle is, when she makes up her mind. The poor young man just couldn't help himself. He was so embarrassed that he didn't know what he was doing. He gave Hester Pringle half chocolate and half sarsaparilla, and she says it was a perfectly awful combination. It made her feel so sick that she couldn't eat any dinner. And all this time Waddy just sat and smiled into space and saw nothing; but all the girls saw,—and so did the drugstore man!"