“Tavia, don’t talk such nonsense!” exclaimed Dorothy severely. “You know perfectly well we are under the school rules, and that we are in honor bound not to violate them. As if any sensible girl would risk her good standing for such an escapade!”
“What’s the ‘standing’ at Glenwood compared to the ‘sitting’ in the Fire Bird?” asked Tavia flippantly. “Besides, just think of all the jolly fellows we would meet; wouldn’t we, Nat?”
“There’s a great collection of wild ducks out there at the auto camp,” Nat answered rather reluctantly, for he plainly saw that Tavia’s surprising proposition had caused Dorothy serious annoyance.
“Well, I’ve a mind to go myself. Will you come for me, boys? I could disappear at class hour, when all the ‘tattle-tales’ will be sure to be busy, scheming out of their work. Then I could get back in time to have my head tied up at lunch hour—head-ache all the morning, you know. Simplest thing in the world.”
Even the boys scarcely smiled as Tavia unfolded a possible plan to deceive her teachers, and to dishonor her own name. Her friends were well accustomed to her pranks and prattle, and usually regarded her nonsense as mere babble. But, somehow, Tavia, was “growing up,” lately, and it seemed quite time for her to take life more seriously.
“Tavia,” spoke up Dorothy finally, “you came to Glenwood upon my aunt’s recommendation, and under my—”
“Wing!” broke in Tavia, throwing her arms out toward the slender form of the girl seated ahead of her in the auto.
“At any rate,” finished Dorothy, “I’m perfectly sure that my cousins will never take part in any such nonsense.”
“Oh, Mr. Flea, you’ve bitten me, and you must die!” sang Tavia, making a series of melo-dramatic gestures, that caused the boys to laugh and even made Dorothy smile in forgiveness.
“Thus are my social ambitions nipped in the bud—extinguished in their first, faint gleaming,” went on Tavia, assuming a tone of tragedy. “Well, my fairy-godmother, Dorothy Dale Glenwood, when that day comes that I am forced to spurn the lines of the Social Swim, and you find me beyond the ropes, clinging helplessly to the tail-end of my former prestige, carried out with the great, surging tide of struggling humanity, then you will remember that I had attempted a correct debut, and it ended in a splash of Dale indignation!”