"Oh, Willie, and did you really buy that cake for me with your own cent, and you didn't eat up all my jaw-breakers?"
"Of course you know I was just fooling about that nickel, don't you, Margery?"
There is no telling what Margery really knew down deep in her heart, and it didn't in the least matter. All that mattered now was this: Here was Willie Jones, genuinely ashamed of what he had done, and man enough to say so. Margery forgave him instantly.
"But, Willie, I just won't eat a bite of that cake unless you take half. Here, let me break it in two."
After they had eaten the cake, she insisted likewise upon sharing the recovered jaw-breakers.
"And I'm going to take the one you've partly sucked for one of mine, because I've had a whole one already, and you haven't had any."
Willie Jones protested, but this time Margery had her way, and in a few moments, after the friendliest of partings, he was started home with a fresh jaw-breaker in his cheek and another in his pocket.
Of course, without a thought, Margery had broken her promise to Janet. Well, what if she had? Margery gave her shoulders an impatient little shrug. Who, pray, was Janet McFadden that she should come between friends? To be sure, in her way, Janet was a good, kind creature, and she meant well, but wasn't she a trifle excitable and a little too emphatic, don't you think? On the whole, too, her outlook on life seemed rather limited. There were certain things you never could expect her to understand. Come to think of it, she didn't look like a girl who received many valentines. It might be just as well if Margery never saw her again, for explanations would be difficult.
Not so, though, with Rosie O'Brien! If Margery ever met Rosie alone, she could explain to Rosie, and Rosie, she felt sure, would understand at once. Rosie had bright blues eyes and pretty hair that blew about her face in soft, alluring ringlets. Rosie without a doubt would understand.
Poor Janet McFadden! Margery really felt sorry for Janet as she thought of her going through life weighted down with such a grievance. Of course, it was awfully good of her, the way she had espoused Margery's cause. Poor thing, she was probably still fuming over Margery's wrongs at this very moment, when Margery herself, sucking hard at Willie Jones's half-finished jaw-breaker, which she was in hopes of concluding before dinner, was feeling anything but injured and down-trodden. Perhaps, though, it was the poor thing's pleasure to keep herself always stirred up.