“Don’t you?” Maybelle waited a long minute, then added just three words: “He’ll be there.” Hilda, bent low over tying her slippers, tried to think of something careless to say, and finally ejaculated weakly: “Oh—will he?” “Yes, he will. Everybody goes; small parties; just the Burketts and Lefty Adams and some of the other boys in our crowd. But you’ll get a chance to see him again—if I help you.” Hilda glanced up, startled; Maybelle was smiling at her meaningly. “When there’s somebody you want to see, and you can’t get a chance to without sneaking it—” “It isn’t the way you think—” “How do you know what I think?” Maybelle interrupted. “What you blushing so for? I’ll bet anything that I’ve got that it is—and more so. You’re carrying on with a man that your folks don’t know anything about. Well—I’m sort of glad. Helps me out.” “I’m not—” “Yes, you are. If it wasn’t a secret affair—you’d have told Ma and Pa as soon as you came over here that you were acquainted with Pearse Masters—that he’d visited at the Three Sorrows. Caught you that time!” Maybelle looked like Fayte when she grinned that way. “Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You help me out and I’ll help you out. There’s some one in the town crowd that’ll be out at the picnic grounds County Day that I want to see—that I’ve got to see. I guess you know who it is. Same fellow that stole a ride with me on the way to the dance last night. The one you saw in the store the other day. You do what you can to get me my chance to speak to him, and I’ll get Mrs. Burkett to invite Pearse Masters to eat lunch with her. Pa can’t say a word if Mrs. Burkett gives the invitation—and then throws in with us, and she’s going to do that.” “He won’t come,” said Hilda faintly. “Oh, won’t he?” jeered Maybelle. “Well, I wish I was as sure that I’d get a chance to talk to the one I want to see as I am that Pearse Masters is from now on going to go to any place he thinks he’ll see you. He’ll camp on your trail, all right, if I’m any judge. Huh,” with a little excited giggle, “didn’t you like the way he put it all over Ma? Say—he’s the kind that runs things his own way, isn’t he? The Masterses were rich. He’s been used to money—in the East—and in Europe. Does make an awful difference in a fellow. I don’t wonder you’re crazy about him.” “Maybelle—” Hilda broke off. What was the use? Maybelle’s mind—her way of looking at things—was her own. Hilda couldn’t say to her that the friendship between herself and Pearse Masters was a very different thing from any secret affair she, Maybelle, might have with that older man, with his strange, hard face. From the window where she stood, Maybelle glanced sharply over her shoulder at Hilda; then, as though she were answering an argument that had been carried on aloud, said in a flat voice: “Well, there’s Mrs. Burkett turning in at the store, now. Shall I go over and fix it so she’ll invite Pearse Masters? Shall I—or shan’t I?”