CHAPTER XVIII
PLAYING A PART
Dorothy braced up mentally and prepared for the encounter.
Stanley Blake was coming toward them down the aisle with Gibbons following close at his heels like a squat little tug in the wake of a graceful steamboat.
Tavia’s eyes danced as she watched them. She was evidently prepared to enjoy herself thoroughly. To see her outspoken Dorothy Dale play a part was a novelty and a most amusing one.
“Like going to a play, only lots better,” was her unspoken thought. “For this, Tavia Travers, is real drama. True to life, if not truer.”
But Dorothy was in quite a different mood. It was hard for her to act a part and she hated it. If she were forced to do such a thing for any one but Garry——
She closed here eyes for a moment and thought hard of Garry. When she opened them she looked straight into the handsome eyes of “Cal,” alias Stanley Blake, and smiled sweetly.
The latter was armed with two huge candy boxes and Dorothy accepted one of these while she longed to throw it to the floor. She decided hastily that she would get rid of it as soon as the men had returned to their own car.
It was easy to see that Tavia had no such scruples. She had already untied the violet ribbon that surrounded a box of an equally violet—Tavia afterwards pronounced it “violent”—hue, and, with smiling hospitality, was passing it around.
They talked for a while about impersonal things until Dorothy managed deftly and with apparent inadvertence to insert the information that she and her chum were bound for Desert City.