"Well, it would have been fun," said Bess, wickedly enjoying the shocked look that deepened on Nan's face. "Cheer up, Nan," she added with one of her sudden changes of mood. "You know very well how I hate Linda.

However," she continued, "I suppose we really ought to be grateful to her now."

"Grateful?" repeated Nan wonderingly.

"For damaging the heating plant up at school, silly," explained Bess, "and giving us a chance to go to Florida."

CHAPTER XV

WE'RE OFF!

Nan could not help laughing at this speech of her chum's, and she turned her chair about to face Bess. Nan did not like riding backward in a train very much herself, but as Bess had declared she "simply couldn't stand it," it was unselfish Nan, as usual, who did the unpleasant thing.

But, the chair turned, as she sank down into its luxurious depth she looked across gravely at her friend.

"I don't see why you say that Linda did that awful thing up at school,"

she said. "We haven't the slightest proof in the world that she was the guilty one. That handkerchief you found didn't really prove anything."

Bess sniffed as she reached over to open her bag and get out from among its heterogeneous contents a box of sweets she had thoughtfully remembered to slip in before she started.

"Of course we don't know that she did it," she said, opening the box and offering it to Nan. "But you know very well there isn't another girl in the school who is mean enough to think of such a thing."

"Y-yes," answered Nan doubtfully, as she pushed the candy over toward its owner. "But on the other hand, I never thought Linda had nerve enough to do anything like that. Why, she might have been dreadfully hurt herself!"

"Of course she didn't know that she was in danger," retorted Bess, with a scornful little toss of her head. "She didn't have brains enough."

"Just the same," said Nan decidedly, "I don't think we ought to accuse her until we have something definite to go on."

"Isn't that just like Nan Sherwood!" cried Bess, regarding her chum with a mixture of fondness and irritation. "Always making excuses for everybody! I suppose if we had caught Linda in the act, you would still say it must have been somebody else."

"Hardly as bad as that," said Nan, with a little laugh, adding, while a cloud pa.s.sed over her face: "Goodness knows I have more reason than any of the rest of the girls for disliking Linda. She never accused any one but me of stealing. I only hope," she added, "that we don't meet her somewhere on this trip."

"Goodness gracious, Nan!" cried Bess, fairly jumping from her seat in surprise, "you don't expect to meet her, do you?"

"If I did," said Nan ruefully, "I would get right off this train and go back to Tillbury, much as I have counted on this trip. No, honey," she added, laughing at her own extravagance, "there's no need of your getting excited, for I have no idea that we shall meet Linda at Palm Beach. Only she has the most disconcerting way of popping up in places where you least expect her."

"Well, all I have to say," returned Bess, biting fiercely into a fresh chocolate and wishing it were Linda instead, "is that I wish you wouldn't put such uncomfortable ideas into my head. Here I was just about forgetting Linda, and you have to lug her into the limelight again."

Nan laughed merrily and helped herself to another of Bess's chocolates without even so much as a "by your leave."

"Cheer up," she said, with a chuckle, "I've done all the 'lugging' I'm going to for a little while. And in the meantime," she added, her voice thrilling with antic.i.p.ation, "let's think of something really pleasant--Palm Beach, for instance."

"Now you are talking!" cried Bess approvingly. "I have to pinch myself about every five minutes to realize that I'm really going there. I wonder if it is really as gay as people say it is. That's where all the actresses go, you know. And millionaires and authors----"

"And bald-headed business men and fussy, over-dressed women," added Nan demurely, her eyes twinkling at the look of horror that Bess turned upon her.

"Nan, how can you?" Bess burst out, as Nan had fully expected her to do.

"Bald-headed men, indeed! Do you suppose I have come all this way just to see a lot of old bald-headed men?"

"You haven't come yet," Nan reminded her, her eyes sparkling. "I didn't say _all_ the men were bald-headed," she added, in an attempt to soothe her outraged companion. "But dad says most of them are--especially the millionaires."

"Oh, how--how--dreadful!" stuttered Bess. "Why, all the millionaires I ever saw had beautiful, leonine heads with s.h.a.ggy manes of thick white hair and strong, clearly cut chins----"

"That's in the movies," Nan interrupted with a chuckle. "Papa Sherwood says that if all the men had hair like the movie heroes they would have to spend all their energy growing it and wouldn't have time to attend to their brains. And then where would their millions be?"

"Well," said Bess, unable to find an answer to this queer question, yet still indignant, nevertheless, "you needn't go to work to spoil all my illusions. I don't believe you have a speck of romance anywhere about you, Nan Sherwood."

"Maybe I haven't," Nan admitted cheerfully, without looking the slightest bit worried about it. "But I expect to have lots of fun, just the same. Oh, Bess, look out!"

Bess, who had stood up to pull down the shade, jumped and looked about at Nan wildly.

"What's the matter?" she gasped. "Train on fire?"

"No. But you almost sat on a chocolate," said Nan calmly, as she removed the large and luscious sweet from Bess's seat. Bess stared at her reproachfully and sank back into the chair.

"You might just as well kill me as scare me to death," she said reproachfully.

For a while after that the happy girls forgot to talk and sat staring contentedly out at the flying landscape while the train pounded on heavily over the rails, singing its everlasting "catch 'em up, catch 'em up, catch 'em up."

Then suddenly Bess spoke, taking up the conversation where they had left it.

"If all we are going to find at Palm Beach is bald men and fussy women,"

she said, "I must say I don't see how we are going to have much fun."

"Oh, don't be such a silly," laughed Nan. "Of course we are going to find something else. There's the ocean and the palm trees. They say the scenery is perfectly gorgeous and the two big hotels wonderful, and there'll be the crowds and crowds of people. And then we shall meet Grace and Walter----"

"And Walter," repeated Bess teasingly, then laughed at the other girl's quick blush.

"Now I know you are silly," said Nan crossly. "You know you are glad Walter is going to be there."

"Of course I am," admitted Bess with suspicious promptness. "Walter is jolly good fun, especially when he has his _Bargain Rush_ with him. But lately the rest of us girls--even Grace--have to hang on to his coat-tails to keep him from going off alone with you. He doesn't seem to know there's any one else around. Oh, you don't need to look so surprised, Miss Innocence," she added, as Nan regarded her with wide-open eyes. "You know it just as well as the rest of us."

"Oh--oh--I never heard of such a thing!" cried Nan, and her amazement was unfeigned. "I think you are perfectly horrid. Why, Walter has always been lovely to all of us. And as to his going off with me alone--why, that's nonsense, and you know it, Bess Harley!" Nan's amazement was rapidly giving way to indignation. "Walter has never gone off anywhere alone with me, never!"

"I know he hasn't," admitted Bess, with a chuckle. "And for a very good reason. We wouldn't let him."

Nan stared for a minute. Then something surprisingly like tears filled her eyes and she turned quickly to the window.

"I don't think you are nice," she said in a low voice. "If Walter has been any nicer to me than he has to any one else, I surely haven't noticed it. And now you've gone and spoiled everything. I won't want to go anywhere with him now just because I will be afraid you girls are saying silly things. And Walter's such awfully good fun!" The last was very much in the nature of a wail, and Bess's heart, which was never very hard at any time, softened and she slipped over to Nan's chair and put an arm about her chum.

"Move over," she commanded. "It's lucky neither of us is very fat or we couldn't both sit in one chair. That's right," as Nan obediently "moved over" but still kept her face to the window. "Now say you forgive me for being such an old bear. After all, honey," and she patted Nan's shoulder soothingly, "I suppose it isn't your fault if Walter likes you best."

Nan's shoulder moved impatiently.

"But he doesn't," she insisted, staring out of the window. "It isn't so."