“You know perfectly well, you little minx,” said her brother with mock sternness. “There we were, waving handkerchiefs at you and hustling the old machine along to beat the band. I know you saw us, for one of you was looking back.”
“I did see some one waving a handkerchief,” admitted Belle. “But it looked as though some ill-bred person was trying to flirt with us, and of course we didn’t pay the least attention.”
“No,” said Bess primly, “we’d die before we’d flirt.”
“If we’d wanted to flirt we had a perfectly good chance to-day while we were eating lunch,” said Cora. “He had a perfectly lovely necktie, too, a good deal brighter than any of yours.”
Jack threw up his hands with a gesture of despair.
“No use, fellows!” he exclaimed. “You can’t pin them down to anything.”
“But what did you have to wave your handkerchief for anyway to make us stop?” asked Cora demurely. “All you had to do was to put on more speed and catch up to us. That car of yours is so fast, you know. At least that’s what you’ve always said.”
The boys looked at each other a little disconcertedly.
“W-well,” stammered Jack, “the oil—the sparking wasn’t working just right——”
“Tell the truth, Jack,” spoke up Walter, with a fine assumption of candor. “The real reason, girls, was that we were afraid of bumping into you——”