“Yes, I just missed you,” Babs interrupted her, making tight hold of Ruth’s arm. “But don’t escape me now. I want to ask you something.”
There was no getting away from it; Babs felt more and more guilty. She could not get the picture of those frightened Italian children out of her mind, and to think that she had promised and that her friend should have almost immediately have done the very thing she had promised not to do. Babs had told Nicky that they would not go near his home, that they would go no further than the tracks, where he insisted upon leaving Dud’s car. Then, according to the scraps of information that Babs had gleaned, the girls had deliberately gone across the tracks, down the little alley-way and for all she knew right up to Nicky’s door. They had even seen the pictures on the queer paper window shades.
The party occupied almost a full row of chairs in the theater, and Ruth was next to Babs on one side with Dick next her on the other. Between every pause Babs tried to ask Ruth a question, but since talking while a film is being shown is impossibly impolite, she made little headway with obtaining an explanation.
“But what difference did it make?” Ruth blurted out. “Why shouldn’t we go there?”
“Because, when Nicky got his arm hurt and we took him home,” Babs whispered, “I promised we wouldn’t go there again. You know his folks are awfully bitter since they took his father away.”
“Oh.” Ruth added no comment. She was sure to believe and understand Babs, for Ruth Harrison was neither jealous nor suspicious.
The picture was interesting enough to evoke peals of laughter from all those about her, but Babs could not center her attention upon it. When a small boy with his “tattered dog” was shown, she saw Nicky, the big pleading eyes of the screen child accusing her of betraying a child’s trust.
“That’s what makes it so horribly mean,” she kept thinking. “He trusted me, and, of course, he’ll think it was all my fault.”
Just then Ruth nudged her, very insistently.
“Say, Babs,” she whispered, “no fooling, there is something mighty queer about those Italians. I’ll tell you what I think when I get a chance.”