“Well anyway, it’s not such a bad picture,” she chuckled at last.
After the chuckle her face took on a sober look.
Then suddenly she exclaimed: “Let’s see what they say about it!”
“Well of all things! Nothing but a line of question marks! Well, at least the reporters know nothing about it.”
For a moment she stared at the long line of interrogation points, then her face dimpled with a smile.
“Just think,” she murmured. “They never whispered one word! Not one of them all! Not Patrick O’Hara, nor the old one they called Tim, nor the young one, nor even Hogan, who was so angry at me. And I’ll bet the reporters begged and tempted them in every way they could think of. What wonderful good sports policemen must be. I—I’d like to hug every one of them!”
Then she went skipping across the floor and back again, then paused and stared again at the picture.
Truth was, all unknown to her, and certainly very much against her wishes, Cordie’s picture had gotten into the paper. This was the picture she was still staring at: Crowds thronging State Street, a gray-haired mounted policeman, and by his side, also riding a police horse, a bobbed haired young girl in a policeman’s great coat.
“What if they see it!” she murmured.
“They wouldn’t let me stay. They will see it too—of course they will.”