CHAPTER XVIIICROSS PURPOSES
Tavia was as loyal a girl as ever stepped in shoe-leather. That was an oft-repeated expression of Major Dale’s. He loved “the flyaway” for this very attribute.
Tavia was now attempting to bring joy and happiness for Dorothy out of chaos. Therefore, she felt she dared take nobody into her confidence regarding Lance Petterby’s letter.
She replied to Lance at once, explaining more fully about Garry Knapp, the land he was about to sell, and the fact that Eastern schemers were trying to obtain possession of Knapp’s ranch for wheat land and at a price far below its real worth.
Satisfaction, Tavia might feel in this attempt to help Dorothy; but everything else in the world was colored blue—very blue, indeed!
When one’s ear has become used to the clatter of a noisy little windmill, for instance, and the wind suddenly ceases and it remains calm, the cessation of the mill’s clatter is almost a shock to the nerves.
This was about the way Tavia’s sudden shift ofmanner struck all those observant ones at The Cedars. As the season of joy and gladness and good-will approached, Tavia Travers sank lower and lower into a Slough of Despond.
Had it not been for Dorothy Dale, the others must have audibly remarked Tavia’s lack of sparkle. Though Dorothy did not imagine that Tavia was engaged in any attempt to help her, and because of that attempt had refused to explain Lance Petterby’s letter to Nat White, yet she loyally began to act as a buffer between the others and the contrary Tavia. More than once did Dorothy fly to Tavia’s rescue when she seemed to be in difficulties.
Tavia had a streak of secrecy in her character that sometimes placed her in a bad light when judged by unknowing people. Dorothy, however, felt sure that on this present occasion there was no real fault to be found with her dear friend.
Nat refused to speak further about his feeling toward Tavia; Dorothy knew better than to try to tempt Tavia herself to explain. The outstanding difficulty was the letter from the Westerner. Feeling sure, as she did, that Tavia liked Nat immensely and really cared nothing for any other man, Dorothy refrained from hinting at the difficulty to her chum. Let matters take their course. That was the better way, Dorothy believed. She felt that Nat’s deeper affections hadbeen moved and that only the surface of his pride and jealousy were nicked. On the other hand she knew Tavia to be a most loyal soul, and she could not imagine that there was really any cause, other than mischief, for Tavia to allow that letter to stand between Nat and herself.
To smooth over the rough edges and hide any unpleasantness from the observation of the older members of the family, Dorothy became very active in the social life of The Cedars again. No longer did she refuse to attend the cousins and Jennie and Tavia in any venture. It was a quintette of apparently merry young people once more; never a quartette. Nor were Nat and Tavia seen alone together during those few short weeks preceding Christmas.
Secretly, Dorothy was very unhappy over the misunderstanding between her chum and Nat. That it was merely a disagreement and would not cause a permanent break between the two was her dear hope. For she wished to see them both happy. Although at one time she thought the steadier Ned, the older cousin, might be a better mate for her flyaway friend, she had come to see it differently of late. If anybody could understand and properly appreciate Tavia Travers it was Nathaniel White. His mind, too, was quick, his imagination colorful. Dorothy Dale, with growing understanding of character and the mentalequipment to judge her associates better than most girls, or young women, of her age, believed in her heart that neither Tavia nor Nat would ever get along with any other companion as well as the two could get along together.
The two “wildfires,” as Aunt Winnie sometimes called them, had always had occasional bickerings. But a dispute is like a thunderstorm—it usually clears the air.
Nor did Dorothy doubt for a moment that her cousin and her friend were deeply in love now, the one with the other. That Tavia had turned without explanation about Lance Petterby’s letter from Nat and that the latter had told Dorothy he was not sure he wished Tavia to answer the important question he had put to her, sprang only from pique on Nat’s side, and, Dorothy was sure, from something much the same in her chum’s heart.
Light-minded and frivolous as Tavia had always appeared, Dorothy knew well that the undercurrent of her chum’s feelings was both deep and strong. Where she gave affection Tavia herself would have said she “loved hard!”
Dorothy had watched, during these past few weeks especially, the intimacy grow between her chum and Nat White. They were bound to each other, Dorothy believed, by many ties. Disagreements did not count. All that was on the surface. Underneath, the tide of their feelings intermingledand flowed together. She could not believe that any little misunderstanding could permanently divide Tavia and Nat.
But they were at cross purposes—that was plain. Nat was irritated and Tavia was proud. Dorothy knew that her chum was just the sort of person to be hurt most by being doubted.
Nat should have understood that if Tavia had given him reason to believe she cared for him, her nature was so loyal that in no particular could she be unfaithful to the trust he placed in her. His quick appearance of doubt when he saw the letter from the West had hurt Tavia cruelly.
Yet, Dorothy Dale did not try to make peace between the two by going to Nat and putting these facts before him in the strong light of good sense. She was quite sure that if she did so Nat would come to terms and beg Tavia’s pardon. That was Nat’s way. He never took a middle course. He must be either at one extreme of the pendulum’s swing or the other.
And Dorothy was sure that it would not be well, either for Nat or for Tavia, for the former to give in without question and shoulder the entire responsibility for this lover’s quarrel. For to Dorothy Dale’s mind there was a greater shade of fault upon her chum’s side of the controversy than there was on Nat’s. Because of the very fact that all her life Tavia had been flirting ormaking believe to flirt, there was some reason for Nat’s show of spleen over the Petterby letter.
Dorothy did not know what had passed between Tavia and Nat the evening before the arrival of the letter. She did not know what Tavia had demanded of Nat before she would give him the answer he craved.
Nat kept silence. Mrs. White did not come to Tavia and ask the question which meant so much to the warm-hearted girl. Tavia suffered in every fiber of her being, but would not betray her feelings. And Dorothy waited her chance to say something to her chum that might help to clear up the unfortunate state of affairs.
So all were at cross purposes, and gradually the good times at The Cedars became something of a mockery.