“Would you mind——” Fannie stammered. “I mean—I think I have a right to ask—I want you to look in your pockets. I believe——” she continued, getting bolder every moment. “I am sure that one of you will find my pocketbook——”
Billie’s frank, candid face flushed as scarlet as her motor car, while the color left Elinor’s cheeks as white as death. Nancy gave a little frightened giggle, and Mary Price neither flushed nor turned white, but looked quietly on.
“Really, Fannie,” spoke Elinor, “you are not in the lawless South American country you came from, whatever it is. You are among decent people, not thieves, and perhaps you had better remember that hereafter. Start on, Billie,” she commanded, sitting as erect as a queen at her own coronation.
“But I insist!” screamed Fannie.
“She has a right,” put in Belle.
“Get out of the road,” cried Billie, backing recklessly out of the shed, turning with a wide, flourishing curve and whizzing out of the gate at full speed.
“Well, of all the insolence,” cried Elinor. “What does she mean and how does she dare——” her voice choked with indignation.
“Don’t you think it was Belle Rogers who put her up to it out of revenge?” suggested Mary.
“If it was, I can’t see what she had to gain by it,” said Billie. “Elinor sailed into them and we nearly sailed over them. It seems to me we had a good deal the best of it.”