“Say! he’s all right—Garry Knapp is!” Tavia cried, shaking the bag to which she now clung so tightly, and almost on the verge of doing a few “steps of delight” on the public thoroughfare. “I could hug him!”
“It—it is very strange,” murmured Dorothy, for she was still very much disturbed in her mind.
“It’s particularly jolly,” said Tavia. “And I am going to—well, thank him, at least,” as she saw her friend start and glance at her admonishingly, “just the very first chance I get. But I ought to hug him! He deserves some reward. You said yourself that perhaps I should reward the finder.”
“Mr. Knapp could not possibly have been the finder. The bag was merely returned through him.” Dorothy spoke positively.
“Don’t care. I must be grateful to somebody,” wailed Tavia. “Don’t nip my finer feelings in the bud. Your name should be Frost—Mademoiselle Jacquesette Frost! You’re always nipping me.”
Dorothy, however, remained grave. She plainly saw that this incident foretold complications. She had made up her mind that she and Tavia would have nothing more to do with the Westerner, Garry Knapp; and now her friend would insist on thanking him—of course, she must if only for politeness’ sake—and any further intercourse with Mr. Knapp would make the situation all the more difficult.
She wished with all her heart that their shopping was over, and then she could insist upon taking the train immediately out of New York, even if she had to sink to the abhorred subterfuge of playing ill, and so frightening Tavia.
She wished they might move to some other hotel; but if they did that an explanation must be made to Aunt Winnie as well as to Tavia. It seemed to Dorothy that she blushed all over—fairly burned—whenever she thought of discussing her feelings regarding Garry Knapp.
Never before in her experience had Dorothy Dale been so quickly and so favorably impressed by a man. Tavia had joked about it, but she by no means understood how deeply Dorothy felt. And Dorothy would have been mortified to the quick had she been obliged to tell even her dearest chum the truth.
Dorothy’s home training had been most delicate. Of course, in the boarding school she and Tavia had attended there were many sorts of girls; but all were from good families, and Mrs. Pangborn, the preceptress of Glenwood, had had a strict oversight over her girls’ moral growth as well as over their education.