"Oh, all right, I won't. Don't take my head off!" Ray Gale laughed carelessly, and pretended to be afraid of the excited girl.
"Why, why, Zaly," said Patty, "who can your friends be that you won't tell their names? I'm surprised!"
"Their names are--are Mr. and Mrs. Brown," said Azalea, with a defiant look at Raymond, who merely opened his eyes wide and said nothing.
It was quite evident that Brown was _not_ the name of the people who had called on Azalea, and Patty could not imagine what reason there could be for the girl to tell such a falsehood.
"Is that the right name, Gale?" asked Bill, briefly.
"Miss Thorpe says so," he replied, "surely she ought to know."
The subject was dropped and not resumed until after Gale had gone home.
Then Farnsworth asked Azalea who her friends were who had called.
"I told you they were Mr. and Mrs. Brown," she said, glibly. "I met them on the train coming from the West, and we got quite well acquainted."
"But their name is _not_ Brown," Bill said, quietly, "tell me what it is,--or, tell me _why_ you don't want to divulge it."
"It _is_ Brown," persisted Azalea, but the way she spoke and the way her eyes fell before Farnsworth's steady gaze, belied her words.
"I'm sorry, but I can't believe you," he said.
"I can't help that," she returned, pertly, and ran away to her own room.
"Part of the queerness," Bill vouchsafed, and said no more about it.
The next day, Azalea went to her room directly after breakfast, and, locking the door, remained there all the morning.
At luncheon she was quiet, and absent-minded, and as soon as the meal was over she went back to her room.
It was nearly five o'clock, when Patty, puzzled at such actions, tapped at Azalea's door.
"What's the matter, dear?" she called, through the closed door, as there was no response to her knock.
"Nothing; let me alone!" came Azalea's impatient voice.
"Let me alone. I'm all right." The tone was ungracious, and there was no mistaking the import of her speech, so Patty went away.
At dinner time Azalea appeared. She wore the same frock she had worn all day, and Patty looked at her in amazement. Apparently she had been working hard at something. Her hair was rumpled, her collar awry, and her whole appearance untidy and unpresentable.