Dorothy bit her lips to keep back a flood of angry words. She could not very well make a scene by refusing the attentions of this man when Tavia so casually accepted them. She would, she decided, put up with Tavia’s folly once more, but, after that— She was fortified by the knowledge that they were now at their journey’s end and so would automatically dispense with the company of Stanley Blake and his fox-eyed friend.
They were in their room in the Blenheim Hotel at last. Tavia and she were alone.
“Thank goodness, we’re rid of them,” thought Dorothy, as she removed her hat and sank wearily upon the edge of the hard, hotel bed. “I hope I never have to see either of them again.”
But she did, and that in a way that was not only unpleasant but exceedingly startling.
Descending with Tavia to the hotel dining room, Dorothy saw at a table near the door the very two persons whom she had so recently and fervently wished never to see again! Tavia had not seen them yet, and Dorothy prayed fervently that she might not.
The head waiter coming toward them and beaming benignly seemed like a rescuing angel to Dorothy. She must get Tavia seated somewhere, anywhere, before she became aware of the presence of Blake and his friend. To have again their company thrust upon her was unthinkable.
Even at that last moment she would have turned away, urged Tavia to go with her to some quiet, small restaurant outside. But it was too late. The head waiter already was guiding them toward a table.
The table was next to the one at which Blake and his friend sat, at the side and a little to the rear of it. Dorothy gasped, would have protested could she have done so without rousing the suspicion of her friend.
For Tavia was still blissfully unaware of anything unusual in the atmosphere. And the head waiter, with a beaming smile, had motioned one of the waiters to take their order.
Well, it couldn’t be helped, thought Dorothy resignedly. If Tavia saw them she would have to. Lucky the two men were sitting with their backs toward the table where the chums were ensconced, and, by skillful maneuvering on Dorothy’s part, Tavia also had her back turned to them.