“But, my dear Major,” said his sister, with a rather tremulous smile, “it may be years before such an honorable young man as Garry Knapp will acquire a competence sufficient to encourage him to come after our Dorothy.”
“Well—er——”
“And they need each other now,” went on Mrs. White, with assurance, “while they are young and can get the good of youth and of life itself. Not after their hearts are starved by long and impatient waiting.”
“Oh, the young idiot!” growled the major, shaking his head.
Aunt Winnie laughed, although there was still a tremor in her voice. “You call him high-minded and an idiot——”
“He is both,” growled Major Dale. “Perhaps, to be cynical, one might say that in this day and generation the two attributes go together! I—I wish I knew the way out.”
“So do I,” sighed Mrs. White. “For Dorothy’s sake,” she added.
“For both their sakes,” said the major. “For, believe me, this young man isn’t having a very good time, either.”
Tavia wished she might “cut the Gordian knot,” as she expressed it. Ned would have gladly shown Garry a way out of the difficulty. And Dorothy Dale could do nothing!
“What helpless folk we girls are, after all,” she confessed to Tavia. “I thought I was being so bold, so brave, in getting Garry to come East. I believed I had solved the problem through father’s aid. And look at it now! No farther toward what I want than before.”