“Oh!” and Dorothy flushed again.
“You don’t get it—not yet,” said Tavia, wagging her head. “Afterwards I remembered how funny he looked when I had told him that you were a regular ‘sure-enough’ heiress, and I remembered some things he said, too.”
“What do you mean?” asked Dorothy, faintly.
“Why, I scared him away from you,” blurted out Tavia, almost in tears when she thought of what she called her “ivory-headedness.” “I know that he was just as deeply smitten with you, dear, as—as—well, as ever a man could be! But he’s poor—and he’s game. I think that is why he went off in such a hurry and without trying very hard to see you again.”
“Oh, Tavia! Do you believe that is so?” and the joy in Dorothy’s voice could not be mistaken.
“Well!” exclaimed Tavia, “isn’t that pretty bad? You act as though you were pleased.”
Dorothy blushed again, but she was brave. She gazed straight into Tavia’s eyes as she said:
“I am pleased, dear. I am pleased to learn that possibly it was not his lack of interest in poor little me that sent him away from New York so hastily—at least, without making a more desperate effort to see me.”
“Oh, Doro!” cried Tavia, suddenly putting both arms around her friend. “Do you actually mean it?”
“Mean what?”