NAT JUMPS AT A CONCLUSION
All this time Tavia and Nat were having anything but a happy life. Nat
would not have admitted it for the world, but he wished he could leave
home and never appear at The Cedars again until Tavia had gone.
On her part, Tavia would have returned to Dalton before the new year
had Dorothy allowed her to have her own way. Dorothy would not hear of
such a thing.
To make the situation worse for the pair of young people so tragically
enduring their first vital misunderstanding, Ned and Jennie Hapgood
were sailing upon a sea of blissful and unruffled happiness. Nat and
Tavia could not help noting this fact. The feeling of the exalted
couple for each other was so evident that even the Dale boys discussed
it—and naturally with deep disgust.
“Gee!” breathed Joe, scandalized. “Old Ned is so mushy over Jennie
Hapgood that he goes around in a trance. He could tread on his own
corns and not know it, his head is so far up in the clouds. Gee!”
“_I_ wouldn’t ever get so silly over a girl—not even our Dorothy,”
Roger declared. “Would you, Joe?”
“Not in a hundred years,” was his brother’s earnest response.
The major admitted with a chuckle that Ned certainly was hard hit.
The time set for Jennie Hapgood to return to Sunnyside Farm came and
passed, and still many reasons were found for the prolongation of her
visit. Ned went off to New York one day by himself and brought home at
night something that made a prominent bulge in his lower right-hand
vest pocket.
“Oh, _oh_, OH! Dorothy!” ejaculated Tavia, for the moment coming out of
her own doldrums. “Do you know what it is? A Tiffany box! Nothing less!”
“Dear old Ned,” said her chum, with a smile.
Ned and Jennie disappeared together right after dinner. Then, an hour
later, they appeared in the drawing-room where the family was assembled
and Ned led Jennie forward by her left hand—the fingers prominently
extended.
“White gold—platinum!” murmured Tavia, standing enthralled as she
beheld the beautifully set stone.
“Set old Ned back five hundred bucks if it did a cent,” growled Nat,
under his breath and keeping in the background.
“Oh, Jennie!” cried Dorothy, jumping up.
But Aunt Winnie seemed to be nearest. She reached the happy couple
before anybody else.
“Ned needn’t tell me,” she said, with a little laugh and a little sob
and putting both arms about Jennie. “Welcome, my daughter! Very welcome
to the White family. I have for years tried to divide Dorothy with the
major; now I am to have at least _one_ daughter of my very own.”
Did she flash a glance at Tavia standing in the background? Tavia
thought so. The proud and headstrong girl was shot to the quick with
the arrow of the thought that Mrs. White had been told by Nat of the
difference between himself and Tavia and that the lady would never come
to Tavia and ask that question on behalf of her younger son that the
girl so desired her to ask.
Never before had Tavia realized so keenly the great chasm between
herself and Jennie Hapgood. Mrs. White welcomed Jennie so warmly, and
was so glad, because Jennie was of the same level in society as the
Whites. Both in blood and wealth Jennie was Ned’s equal.
Tavia knew very well that by explaining to Nat about Lance Petterby’s
letters she could easily bring that young man to his knees. In her
heart, in the very fiber of the girl’s being, indeed, had grown the
desire to have Dorothy Dale’s Aunt Winnie tell her that she, too, would
be welcome in the White family. Now Tavia doubted if Aunt Winnie would
ever do that.
Jennie was to go home to Sunnyside Farm the next day. This final
decision had probably spurred Ned to action. Because of certain
business matters in town which occupied both Ned and Nat at train time
and the fact that Dorothy was busy with some domestic duty, it was
Tavia who drove the _Fire Bird_, the Whites’ old car, to the station
with Jennie Hapgood.
A train from the West had come in a few minutes before the westbound
one which Jennie was to take was due. Tavia, sitting in the car while
Jennie ran to get her checks, saw a tall man carrying two heavy
suitcases and wearing a broad-brimmed hat walking down the platform.
“Why! if that doesn’t look——Surely it can’t be—I—I believe I’ve got ’em
again!” murmured Tavia Travers.
Then suddenly she shot out from behind the wheel, leaped to the
platform, and ran straight for the tall figure.
“Garry Knapp!” she exploded.
“Why—why—Miss Travers!” responded the big young man, smiling suddenly
and that “cute” little dimple just showing in his bronzed cheek. “You
don’t mean to say you live in this man’s town?”
He looked about the station in a puzzled way, and, having dropped his
bags to shake hands with her, rubbed the side of his head as though to
awaken his understanding.
“I don’t understand your being here, Miss Travers,” he murmured.
“Why, _I’m_ visiting here,” she said, blithely. “But _you_——?”
“I—I’m here on business. Or I think I am,” he said soberly. “How’s
your—Miss Dale! _She_ doesn’t live here, does she?”
“Of course. Didn’t you know?” demanded Tavia, eyeing him curiously.
“No. Who—what’s this Major Dale to her, Miss Travers?” asked the young
man and his heavy brows met for an instant over his nose.
“Her father, of course, Mr. Knapp. Didn’t you know Dorothy’s father was
the only Major Dale there _is_, and the nicest man there ever _was_?”
“How should I know?” demanded Garry Knapp, contemplating Tavia with
continued seriousness. “What is he—a real estate man?”
“Why! didn’t you know?” Tavia asked, thinking quickly. “Didn’t I tell
you that time that he was a close friend of Colonel Hardin, who owned
that estate you told me joined your ranch there by Desert City?”
“Uh-huh,” grunted the young man. “Seems to me you _did_ tell me
something about that. But I—I must have had my mind on something else.”
“On _somebody_ else, you mean,” said Tavia, dimpling suddenly. “Well!
Colonel Hardin left his place to Major Dale.”
“Oh! that’s why, then. He wants to buy my holdings because his land
joins mine,” said Garry Knapp, reflectively.
Tavia had her suspicions of the truth well aroused; but all she replied
was:
“I shouldn’t wonder, Mr. Knapp.”
“I got a good offer—leastways, better than those sharks, Stiffbold and
Lightly, would make me after they’d seen the ranch—from some lawyers
out there. They planked down a thousand for an option, and told me to
come East and close the deal with this Major Dale. And it never entered
into this stupid head of mine that he was related to—to Miss Dale.”
“Isn’t that funny?” giggled Tavia. Then, as Jennie appeared from the
baggage room and the westbound train whistled for the station, she
added: “Just wait for me until I see a friend off on this train, Mr.
Knapp, and I’ll drive you out.”
“Drive me out where?” asked Garry Knapp.
“To see—er—_Major_ Dale,” she returned, and ran away.
When the train had gone she found the Westerner standing between his
two heavy bags about where she had left him.
“Those old suitcases look so natural,” she said, laughing at his
serious face. “Throw them into the tonneau and sit beside me in front.
I’ll show you some driving.”
“But look here! I can’t do this,” he objected.
“You cannot do what?” demanded Tavia.
“Are _you_ staying with Miss Dale?”
“Of course I am staying with Doro. I don’t know but I am more at home
at The Cedars than I am at the Travers domicile in Dalton.”
“But wait!” he begged. “There must be a hotel here?”
“In North Birchland? Of course.”
“You’d better take me there, Miss Travers, if you’ll be so kind. I want
to secure a room.”
“Nothing doing! You’ve got to come out to The Cedars with me,” Tavia
declared. “Why, Do—I mean, of course, Major Dale would never forgive me
if I failed to bring you, baggage and all. His friends do not stop at
the North Birchland House I’d have you know.”
“But, honestly, Miss Travers, I don’t like it. I don’t understand it.
And Major Dale isn’t my friend.”
“Oh, _isn’t_ he? You just wait and see!” cried Tavia. “I didn’t know
about your coming East. Of course, if it is business——”
“That is it, exactly,” the young man said, nervously. “I—I couldn’t
impose upon these people, you know.”
“Say! you want to sell your land, don’t you?” demanded Tavia.
“Ye—es,” admitted Garry Knapp, slowly.
“Well, if a man came out your way to settle a business matter, you
wouldn’t let him go to a hotel, would you? You’d be angry,” said Tavia,
sensibly, “if he insisted upon doing such a thing. Major Dale could not
have been informed when you would arrive, or he would have had somebody
here at the station to meet you.”
“No. I didn’t tell the lawyers when I’d start,” said Garry.
“Don’t make a bad matter worse then,” laughed Tavia, her eyes twinkling
as she climbed in and sat back of the wheel. “Hurry up. If you want
to sell your land you’d better waste no more time getting out to The
Cedars.”
The Westerner got into the car in evident doubt. He suspected that
he had been called East for something besides closing a real estate
transaction. Tavia suspected so, too; and she was vastly amused.
She drove slowly, for Garry began asking her for full particulars about
Dorothy and the family. Tavia actually did not know anything about the
proposed purchase of the Knapp ranch by her chum’s father. Dorothy had
said not a word to her about Garry since their final talk some weeks
before.
At a place in the woods where there was not a house in sight, Tavia
even stopped the car the better to give her full attention to Mr. Garry
Knapp, and to talk him out of certain objections that seemed to trouble
his mind.
It was just here that Nat White, on a sputtering motorcycle he
sometimes rode, passed the couple in the automobile. He saw Tavia
talking earnestly to a fine-looking, broad-shouldered young man wearing
a hat of Western style. She had an eager hand upon his shoulder and the
stranger was evidently much interested in what the girl said.
Nat did not even slow down. It is doubtful if Tavia noticed him at all.
Nat went straight home, changed his clothes, flung a few things into a
traveling bag, and announced to his mother that he was off for Boston
to pay some long-promised visits to friends there and in Cambridge.
Nat, with his usual impulsiveness, had jumped at a conclusion which,
like most snap judgments, was quite incorrect. He rode to the railroad
station by another way and so did not meet Tavia and Garry Knapp as
they approached The Cedars.