CHAPTER VIIIAND STILL DOROTHY IS NOT HAPPY
“But what did hesay?” demanded Dorothy, almost wildly, sitting up in bed at Tavia’s first announcement. “I want to know what hesaid!”
“We-ell, maybe he didn’t tell the truth,” said Tavia, slowly.
“We’ll find out about that later,” Dorothy declared. “Go on.”
“How?”
“Why, of course we must hunt up these girls and give them something for returning your bag.”
“Oh! I s’pose so,” Tavia said. “Though I guess the little one, Number Forty-seven, wanted to keep it.”
“Now, tell meall” breathed Dorothy, her eyes shining. “All he said—every word.”
“Goodness! I guess your headache is better, Doro Dale,” laughed Tavia, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Dorothy said not a word, but her “listening face” put Tavia on her mettle.
“Well, the very first thing he said,” she told her chum, her eyes dancing, “when I ran up to him and thanked him for getting my bag, was:
“‘Where’s Miss Dale?’
“What do you know aboutthat?” cried Tavia, in high glee. “You have made a deep, wide, long, and high impression—a four-dimension impression—on that young man from the ‘wild and woolly.’ Oh yes, you have!”
The faint blush that washed up into Dorothy Dale’s face like a gentle wave on the sea-strand made her look “ravishing,” so Tavia declared. She simply had to stop to hug her friend before she went on. Dorothy recovered her serenity almost at once.
“Don’t tease, dear,” she said. “Go on with your story.”
“You see, the little cash-girl—or ‘check’, as they call them—picked the bag up off the floor and hid it under her apron. Then she was scared—especially when Mr. Schuman chanced to come upon us all as we were quarreling. I suppose Mr. Schuman seems like a god to little Forty-seven.
“Anyhow,” Tavia pursued, “whether the child meant to steal the bag or not at first, she was afraid to say anything about it then. Her sister—this girl who came to the hotel—works in the house furnishing department. Before night Forty-seven told her sister. She had heard Mr. Knapp’s name, and from the shipping clerk the big girl obtained the name of the hotel at which Mr. Knapp was staying. Do you see?”
“Yes,” breathed Dorothy. “Go on, dear.”
“Why, the girl just came here and asked for Mr. Knapp and found he was out. She didn’t know any better than to linger about outside and wait for him to appear—like Mary’s little lamb, you know! Little Forty-seven had told her sister what Mr. Knapp looked like, of course.”
“Of course!” cried Dorothy, agreeing again, but in such a tone that Tavia frankly stared at her.
“I do wish I knew just what is the matter with you to-day, Doro,” she murmured.
“And the rest of it?” demanded Dorothy, her eyes shining and her cheeks still pink.
“Why, when little Forty-seven’s sister saw us with Mr. Knapp she jumped to the correct conclusion that we were the girls who had lost the money, and so she was afraid to speak right out before us——”
“Why?”
“Well, Dorothy,” said Tavia, with considerable gravity for her, “I guess because of the old and well-established reason.”
“What’s that?”
“Because a man will be kinder to a girl in trouble than other girls will—ordinarily, I mean.”
“Oh, Tavia!”
“Suppose it had been that Mrs. Halbridge whohad really lost her bag,” Tavia went on to say. “If this girl had tried to return it, she and little Forty-seven both would have lost their jobs. Perhaps the police would have been called in. Do you see? I expect the big girl read kindness in Mr. Knapp’s face——”
Dorothy suddenly threw both arms about Tavia, and hugged her tightly. “Oh, youdear!” she cried; but she would not explain what she meant by this sudden burst of affection.
“Go on!” was her repeated demand.
“You are insatiable, my dear,” laughed Tavia. “Well, there isn’t much more ‘go on’ to it. The girl spoke to him when he passed her on the street and quickly told him all the story. Of course, he promised that nothing should happen to either of them. They are honest girls—the older one at least. And the temptation came so suddenly to little Forty-seven, whose wages are so pitiably small.”
“I know,” said Dorothy, gently. “You remember, we learned something about it when little Miette De Pleau told us how she worked as cash-girl here years ago.”
“Of course I remember,” Tavia said. “Well, that’s all, I guess. Oh no! I asked Mr. Knapp if he didn’t notice the big girl staring at us as we got to the hotel door last night. And what do you suppose he said?”
“I don’t know,” and Dorothy was still smiling happily.
“Why, he said he didn’t. ‘You see,’ he added, in that funny way of his, ‘I expect my eyes were elsewhere’; and he wasn’t complimenting me, either,” added Tavia, rolling her big eyes. “Whom do you suppose he could have meant he was looking at, Doro?”
Her friend ignored the question, but hopped out of bed.
“What are you going to do?” asked Tavia, in wonder.
“Dress.”
“But it is nine o’clock! Almost bedtime.”
“Bedtime?” demanded Dorothy. “And in the city? Why, Tavia! you amaze me, child!”
“But you’re not going out?” cried her friend.
“Do you realize I haven’t had a bite of dinner?” demanded the bold Dorothy. “I think you are very selfish.”
“Well, anyway,” snapped Tavia, suddenly showing her claws—and who does not once in a while?—“he’sgone out for a long walk and he expects to finish his business to-morrow and go home.”
“Oh!” gasped Dorothy.
She sat on the edge of her bed with her first stocking in her hand. Tavia had gone back into her own room. Had she been present she musthave noticed all the delight fading out of Dorothy Dale’s countenance. Finally, the latter tossed away the stocking, and crept back into bed.
“I—I guess I’m too lazy to dress after all, dear,” she said, in a still little voice. “And you are tired, too, Tavia. The telephone has been fixed; just call down, will you, and ask them to send me up some tea and toast?”