But in a moment the expression of Tavia Travers’ face changed. Dorothy was pensively gazing in the glass; she had halted in her hair brushing, and Tavia knew that her chum neither saw her own reflection nor anything else pictured in the mirror. The mirror of her mind held Dorothy’s attention, and Tavia could easily guess the vision there. A tall, broad-shouldered, broad-hatted young man with a frank and handsome face and a ready smile that dimpled one bronzed cheek ever so little and wrinkled the outer corners of his clear, far-seeing eyes.
Garry Knapp!
Tavia for the first time realized that Dorothy had found interest and evidently a deep and abiding interest, in the young stranger from Desert City. It rather shocked her. Dorothy, of all persons, to become so very deeply interested in a man about whom they knew practically nothing.
Tavia suddenly realized that she knew more about him than Dorothy did. At least, she had been with Garry Knapp more than had her friend. It was Tavia who had had the two hours’ tête-à-tête with the Westerner at dinner on the evening before Garry Knapp departed so suddenly for the West. All that happened and was said at that dinner suddenly unrolled like a panorama before Tavia’s memory.
Why! she could picture it all plainly. She had been highly delighted herself in the recovery of her bag and in listening to Garry’s story of how it had been returned by the cash-girl’s sister. And, of course, she had been pleased to be dining alone with a fine looking young man in a hotel dining-room. She had rattled on when her turn came to talk, just as irresponsibly as usual.
Now, in thinking over the occasion, she realized that the young man from the West had been a shrewd questioner. He had got her started upon Dorothy Dale, and before they came to the little cups of black coffee Tavia had told just about all she knew regarding her chum.
The reader may be sure that all Tavia said was to Dorothy’s glory. She had little need to explain to Garry Knapp what a beautiful character Dorothy Dale possessed. Tavia had told about Dorothy’s family, her Aunt Winnie’s wealth, the fortunes Major Dale now possessed both in the East and West, and the fact that when Dorothy came of age, at twenty-one, she would be wealthy in her own right. She had said all this to a young man who was struggling along as a cowpuncher on a Western ranch, and whose patrimony was a piece of rundown land that he could sell but for a song, as he admitted himself. “And no chorus to it!” Tavia thought.
“I’m a bonehead!” she suddenly thought fiercely. “Nat would say my noodle is solid ivory. I know now what was the matter with Garry Knapp that evening. I know why he rushed up to me and asked for Dorothy, and was what the novelists call ‘distrait’ during our dinner. Oh, what a worm I am! A miserable, squirmy worm! Ugh!” and the conscience-stricken girl fairly shuddered at her own reflection in the mirror and turned away quickly so that Dorothy should not see her features.
“It’s—it’s the most wonderful thing. And it began right under my nose, my poor little ‘re-trousered’ nose, as Joe called it the other day, and I didn’t really see it! I thought it was just a fancy on Dorothy’s part! And I never thought of Garry Knapp’s side of it at all! Oh, my heaven!” groaned Tavia, deep in her own soul. “Why wasn’t I born with some good sense instead of good looks? I—I’ve spoiled my chum’s life, perhaps. Goodness! it can’t be so bad as that.
“Of course, Garry Knapp is just the sort of fellow who would raise a barrier of Dorothy’s riches between them. Goodness me!” added the practical Tavia, “I’d like to see any barrier of wealth stop me if I wanted a man. I’d shin the wall in a hurry so as to be on the same side of it as he was.”