“I don’t see why not!” Cara never could see why any one would slight Barbara. “I’m sure we pay enough taxes to have a secretary answer such letters,” she fumed, indignantly.
“Oh, I suppose I’ll get a letter-form answer, maybe, the kind they grind out of machines, you know. But it would be lovely——” Babs stopped, made a queer face and choked back a laugh.
“A secret, eh?” surmised Cara. “Not even telling me?”
“I don’t want to seem silly, Cara, so if you don’t mind I’ll wait to tell you when I get my official answer. When I do,” she repeated, quizzically.
“Want Nicky made official messenger to the president, or something like that?” Cara started in to guess.
“No fair guessing,” Babs checked her. “And besides, perhaps I shouldn’t have written at all. Who am I, to address the Secretary of State.”
“You are just as important as any one else, I guess,” Cara defended promptly.
“But Captain Quiller is in the government employ, and Nicky got the oil for him,” Babs reminded her.
“Yes, maybe all that’s true, but Captain Quiller doesn’t love Nicky as you do.”
“He does, really Cara. He came over to see Dad right after it all happened, and what he didn’t say in praise of Nicky merely stuck in his throat. He just raved about him.”