“No use trying to argue the matter with you, Don. You won’t agree with me, but you are mistaken about Lance.
“Let us not talk about him any more. Please tell me the something ‘rather special’ you intended to tell me. I am dying to hear. And I am awfully glad you have not been angry and avoided me on purpose during the evening.”
Donald’s clear fresh skin colored. He seemed mollified by Tory’s little friendly speech and slightly ashamed of his own unusual attitude.
He admired Tory Drew more than any one of Dorothy’s friends. She might not be so pretty as several of the others; he had no way of knowing, since to him she possessed so much more interest and charm.
He liked her pallor, the red-gold of her hair and her wide, friendly dark eyes. She did not seem to have a trace of self-consciousness like so many other girls. Nor did Don consider that she had half as much vanity as she had the right to reveal. She had seen so much more of the world, traveling abroad with her artist father until her arrival in Westhaven the year before, small wonder that her manners were attractive.
“It is only a small matter after all, Tory. I have been voted the most popular fellow in my class and chosen Class President for the year. What a duffer I sound telling you in this fashion! After all, I suppose I am more of an ass than Lance. And by the way, Tory, it is not true I would not search for him if I had a chance or go to him if he is in trouble. I suppose you are right. He may be a kind of a halfway genius and an ordinary fellow like I am can’t be expected to understand him.
“You’ll dance with me as often as you can for the rest of the evening?” Tory agreed.
CHAPTER VII
A CITY OF TOWERS
NEITHER Dorothy McClain nor Victoria Drew possessed any real acquaintance with New York City. Dorothy had been there only once as a little girl of six years old on a shopping expedition with her mother. Tory had arrived in New York with the friends from on board the steamer that sailed from Cherbourg. She had, however, spent only a single night at a hotel, leaving next morning for Westhaven, a few hours’ journey away.