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As we drove away from the fair grounds Tish was very silent; but just as we reached the Bailey place, with Bettina and young Jasper McCutcheon batting a ball about on the tennis court, Tish turned to me.

“You needn’t look like that, Lizzie,” she said. “I’m not even thinking of backing an automobile race–although I don’t see why I shouldn’t, so far as that goes. But it’s curious, isn’t it, that I’ve got twenty-five hundred dollars from Cousin Angeline’s estate not even earning four per cent?”

I got out grimly and jerked at my bonnet-strings.

“You put it in a mortgage, Tish,” I advised her with severity in every tone. “It may not be so fast as an automobile race or so likely to turn turtle or break its steering-knuckle, but it’s safe.”

“Huh!” said Tish, reaching for the gear lever. “And about as exciting as a cold pork chop.”

“And furthermore,” I interjected, “if you go into this thing now that your eyes are open, I’ll send for Charlie Sands!”

“You and Charlie Sands,” said Tish viciously, jamming at her gears, “ought to go and live in an old ladies’ home away from this cruel world.”

Aggie was sitting under a sunshade in the broiling sun at the tennis court. She said she had not left Bettina and Jasper for a moment, and that they had evidently quarreled, although she did not know when, having listened to every word they said. For the last half-hour, she said, they had not spoken at all.

“Young people in love are very foolish,” she said, rising stiffly. “They should be happy in the present. Who knows what the future may hold?”

I knew she was thinking of Mr. Wiggins and the icy roof, so I patted her shoulder and sent her up to put cold cloths on her head for fear of sunstroke. Then I sat down in the broiling sun and chaperoned Bettina until luncheon.

III

Jasper took dinner with us that night. He came across the lawn, freshly shaved and in clean white flannels, just as dinner was announced, and said he had seen a chocolate cake cooling on the kitchen porch and that it was a sort of unwritten social law that when the Baileys happened to have a chocolate cake at dinner they had him also.

There seemed to be nothing to object to in this. Evidently he was right, for we found his place laid at the table. The meal was quite cheerful, although Jasper ate the way some people play the piano, by touch, with his eyes on Bettina. And he gave no evidence at dessert of a fondness for chocolate cake sufficient to justify a standing invitation.

After dinner we went out on the veranda, and under cover of showing me a sunset Jasper took me round the corner of the house. Once there, he entirely forgot the sunset.

“Miss Lizzie,” he began at once, “what have I done to you to have you treat me like this?”

“I?” I asked, amazed.

“All three of you. Did–did Bettina’s mother warn you against me?”

“The girl has to be chaperoned.”

“But not jailed, Miss Lizzie, not jailed! Do you know that I haven’t had a word with Bettina alone since you came?”

“Why should you want to say anything we cannot hear?”

“Miss Lizzie,” he said desperately, “do you want to hear me propose to her? For I’ve reached the point where if I don’t propose to Bettina soon, I’ll–I’ll propose to somebody. You’d better be warned in time. It might be you or Miss Aggie.”

I weakened at that. The Lord never saw fit to send me a man I could care enough about to marry, or one who cared enough about me, but I couldn’t look at the boy’s face and not be sorry for him.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Come for a walk with us,” he begged. “Then sprain your ankle or get tired, I don’t care which. Tell us to go on and come back for you later. Do you see? You can sit down by the road somewhere.”