"Then, oh, Schuyler, you must come with me down to the Madison Square Theatre and head them off!"
"Head them off! They've got there by this time."
"No; they were going out on the other side, where they had just left Miss Stephens, because that was the way they would take to go straight to Miss Marr's. Don't you see? Ray Armitage's cunning! Now, if we go out on this side, and take the elevated, we shall get ahead of them, and—"
"Well, I just sha'n't do anything of the kind! I'd like to see myself playing private policeman like that! If the girl is such a blooming idiot as this, she won't pay any attention to you! No, I guess I don't try any such missionary work, to be laughed at by all the fellows in town."
"Laughed at!" A glance upward as she said this, and Kate caught the grin on Peter Van Loon's face, and burst forth: "Oh, that's all your manliness is worth! You're afraid,—afraid some other selfish fellows will laugh at you for doing your duty."
"'Tisn't my duty!"
"No, it isn't, Kate; he's right."
Kate turned about in astonishment, for it was Hope who had spoken, and Hope who went on speaking,—
"And you—you ought not to go, Kate; Dorothea would—would—"
"Be madder than ever. But what can be done?"