"All right," agreed Helen. "I don't believe your theory, but it would be fun, as you say, to try it. Will"—Will was her brother—"insists Al's not so black as he has been painted lately. We will get Will to find out for us if he can."
Then the talk drifted to the more absorbing subject of sandwiches and cakes.
At dinner-time the two girls confided to the accommodating Will their desire to find what had changed Al.
"Trying to pry into private closets, regardless of the kind of welcome their enclosed skeletons may accord you, are you?" said Will, banteringly.
Mary, not accustomed to his teasing, blushed, wondering if she had really been guilty of an indelicate presumption, but Helen spoke up quickly in their defense:—
"Now, Will you know perfectly well it is not any such thing. As a pledge of our good faith—does that sound nice and lawyer-like?" Will was studying law, and Helen, too, liked to tease occasionally—"I do affirm that if you will do that for us, I will do something nice for him, on your account."
"Then I certainly will. It is what I have been trying to convince you for a month that you ought to do."
The girls told him why it was they were so anxious to know more of Alson's private affairs.
"I would like to prove that your Aunt Sue and I are right, you know," said
Mary.
"Well," said Will, turning to his sister's guest, "don't let them prejudice you against Al. He is off the track just now, I know. The girls are not having much to do with him, but I have seen worse than he is." Will went off whistling. The next day he was ready with his report.