“Don’t be mad at her, Mr. Wilder. It’s because she cares for you she goes at you so.”
“Why, Millie, how do you know such things?” said Tootles, opening his eyes.
“Well, I do.”
“I do believe she agrees with Belle,” said O’Leary, who believed no such thing. “Come, now, the truth!”
Thus cornered, to their astonishment the girl looked very red and uncomfortable, but finally announced with a determined shake of her head:
“Well, yes; I do! I think she is absolutely right. And I think—I think you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, every one of you!”
When she had rushed away, overcome with her own daring, the three loungers looked helplessly at each other and then up at the skylight, as though to discover whence the bomb had fallen.
“I do believe we have touched these maidens’ hearts,” said Tootles, the first to break the silence.
“Never felt so gorgeously, deliciously happy in my life,” said Flick, in a melancholy tone. “Everything seemed just lovely with the world; I was just plain plumb glad to be alive—and then some one has to break in and shout, ‘Get up and work!’”
“Well, son, they’re right,” said O’Leary, jumping up and stretching his arms. “Guess millions don’t agree with us.”