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 intermingled and 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 or making 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. CHAPTER XIX