“Nonsense, Tavia!” exclaimed Dorothy. “We’ll do nothing of the kind. We must go to the ladies’ parlor and send a boy to the clerk, or the manager, with our cards. This is a family hotel, I know; but the lobby and the office are most likely full of men at this time in the day.”
“Oh, dear! Come on, then, Miss Particular,” groaned Tavia. “And we didn’t even bid him good-bye at parting.”
“What did you want to do?” laughed Dorothy. “Weep on his shoulder and give him some trinket, for instance, as a souvenir?”
“Dorothy Dale!” exclaimed her friend. “I believe you have something up your sleeve. You seem just sure of seeing this nice cowboy person again.”
“All men from the West do not punch cattle for a living. And it would not be the strangest thing in the world if we should meet G. K. again, as he is stopping at this hotel.”
However, the girls saw nothing more of the smiling and agreeable Westerner that day. Dorothy Dale’s aunt had secured by mail two rooms and a bath for her niece and Tavia. The girls only appeared at dinner, and retired early. Even Tavia’s bright eyes could not spy out G. K. while they were at dinner.
Besides, the girls had many other things to think about, and Tavia’s mind could not linger entirely upon even as nice a young man as G. K. appeared to be.
This was their first visit to New York alone, as the more lively girl indicated. Aunt Winnie White had sprained her ankle and could not come to the city for the usual fall shopping. Dorothy was, for the first time, to choose her own fall and winter outfit. Tavia had come on from Dalton, with the money her father had been able to give her for a similar purpose, and the friends were to shop together.
They left the hotel early the next morning and arrived at the first huge department store on their list almost as soon as the store was opened, at nine o’clock.
An hour later they were in the silk department, pricing goods and “just looking” as Tavia said. In her usual thoughtless and incautious way, Tavia dropped her handbag upon the counter while she used both hands to examine a particular piece of goods, calling Dorothy’s attention to it, too.