So Tavia, who could be sympathetic when she chose, stole away and dressed quietly. She looked in at Dorothy when she was ready to go downstairs, and as her chum lay with her eyes closed Tavia went out without speaking.
Garry Knapp was fidgeting in the lobby when Tavia stepped out of the car. His eye brightened—then clouded again. Tavia noticed it, and her conclusion bore out the thought she had evolved about Dorothy upstairs.
“Oh, Mr. Knapp!” she cried, meeting him with both hands outstretched. “Tell me! How did you find my bag?”
And Garry Knapp was impolite enough to put her question aside for the moment while he asked:
“Where’s Miss Dale?”
Two hours later Tavia returned to her chum. Garry walked out of the hotel with his face heavily clouded.
“Just my luck! She’s a regular millionaire. Her folks have got more money than I’ll ever even see if I beat out old Methuselah in age! And Miss Tavia says Miss Dale will be rich in her own right. Ah, Garry, old man! There’s a blank wall ahead of you. You can’t jump it in a hurry. You haven’t got the spring. And this little mess of money I may get for the old ranch won’t put me in Miss Dorothy Dale’s class—not by a million miles!”
He walked away from the hotel, chewing on this thought as though it had a very, very bitter taste.
CHAPTER VIII
AND STILL DOROTHY IS NOT HAPPY
“But what did he say?” demanded Dorothy, almost wildly, sitting up in bed at Tavia’s first announcement. “I want to know what he said!”