At length, as his room was so patently desired to his company, he reluctantly moved on, joining his unpleasant friend.
Tavia looked at Dorothy with a sparkle in her eye. Evidently she had been enjoying herself immensely and was in a conciliatory mood.
“Don’t be mad with me, Doro, darling,” she coaxed. “I know I’m a perfect simpleton. But I was born that way, you know. I really can’t help it.”
“You could help a good many things, Tavia, if you wanted to,” said Dorothy, turning away from the window. “Sometimes I wonder how you can be in love with Nat and still act the way you do.”
“Well, I am in love with Nat and that’s all that matters—to Nat and me,” retorted Tavia, her voice suddenly hard and cold. “I think you are too absurdly conventional for words, Dorothy Dale. If you insist on being a spoil-sport, then you can be one by yourself. I don’t intend to help you!”
And so began the quarrel—the first real one the girls had ever had, and one that lasted all through that miserable journey to Chicago.
Tavia, through a perverse desire to torment her chum, was almost constantly to be seen in the company of the young man whose name, according to him, was Stanley Blake.
Chicago came at last, and with it an immense relief to Dorothy Dale. Her relief vanished immediately, however, when she found that Stanley Blake had taken the place of a porter and was to carry their bags.
“He shan’t carry mine,” she said, in a sudden fury, to Tavia. “If you want to go on being an—an——”
“Idiot. You might as well say it,” Tavia finished for her. “You can do as you please, Doro. If you want to make a scene over such a foolish little thing—— Come on, be a sport,” she added, suddenly conciliatory again. “What’s your awful objection to saving a porter’s tip?”