alized that she had no money with her. Lucy came to the rescue with the Parisian beaded bag which she kept in the seat of her runabout. It was stuffed carelessly with bills.
"A hundred dollars—that will be plenty, will it not?" in a tone that implied it must be. The man accepted it. And Carmelita was bound to her bargain in what seemed to her a mere twinkling of the eye.
It was not until they had located the brisk Knowles in his office and concluded the preliminary business with him and were on their way back to the Hodges that the thought oceurred chillingly to Carmelita. "How shall I explain my sudden wealth to Dudley? I can never admit that I have been gambling."
"That's so," Lucy Hodge, intent upon her task of driving the car through the bustling activity of a typical good Long Island road on a typical summer afternoon, was yet turning things over in her agile mind. "Tell him," she suggested, "that your father has unexpectedly forgiven you and sent a check."
"I couldn't tell him a lie. Besides, how could I be getting mail here from my father?"
"Oh, don't let a little matter like explaining the money worry you. You'll think of something when the time comes."
As a matter of fact Lucy's prophecy was unexpectedly correct.
