“I won’t tell you!” Azalea cried, stormily.  “It’s nobody’s business if I answer a telephone call.  I don’t ask you who it is, every time you telephone!”

“All right, Zaly, forgive me,—­I was a bit inquisitive.”

And so the matter was dropped, but that night after Azalea had gone to her room, Patty came tapping at the door.

It was only after repeated knocking that Azalea opened the door a little way, and quite evidently resented the intrusion.

“I’m just going to bed,” she said, ungraciously.

“I won’t stay but a minute,” and Patty insistently pushed her way in.  “Now, don’t fly into a rage, dear, but you must tell me who called you up on the telephone to-day.”

“You’ve no right to ask!”

“Yes, I have, and, too, there must be some reason why you are so unwilling to tell me.  Why is it?”

Azalea hesitated.  Then she said, “Oh, I’ve no reason to make a secret of it.  But I think you’re very curious.  It was somebody I met on the train when I came East.”

“A man or a woman?”

“A—­a woman.”

“Are you telling the truth, Azalea?” and Patty’s clear, compelling gaze was direct and accusing.

“Well—­well—­Patty, it’s both.”

“Those people who called here one day, and you saw them on the porch?”

“Yes.”

“What are their names?”

“Oh,—­oh, I forget.”

“Rubbish!  You don’t forget.  Be sensible, Azalea.  You’re making a mystery of something.  Now if it’s anything wrong, I’m going to know about it,—­if it’s merely a little secret of your own,—­a justifiable one,—­tell me so, in a convincing way, and I’ll stop questioning.”

“It is a secret of my own,—­and it’s nobody’s business but mine.”

“Is it a harmless, innocent matter?”

“Of course it is!  What do you think I am?  A thief?”

“Gracious, no!  I never thought you were that!” Patty laughed.  “But I do suspect you’re up to some flirtation or affair of that sort, and I have a perfect right to inquire into the matter.  Why didn’t you let us meet your friends that day they called?”

“I didn’t suppose you would care to know them.  They’re not your sort.”

“Are they your sort?  Oh, Zaly, I thought you wanted to be our ’sort,’—­as you call it.  You don’t want to have friends Bill and I wouldn’t approve of, do you?”

“Oh,—­I don’t know what I want!  I wish you’d go ’way, and leave me alone!”

“I will in a minute.  Tell me your friends’ names.”

“I won’t.”

“Then I shall ask Ray Gale.  He knows them,—­he recognised them the day they were here, and you forbade him to tell me who they were.”

“Then if he knows them, isn’t that enough to assure you of their respectability?”

“It isn’t a question of respectability,—­I want to know why they are telephoning you,—­not casually,—­but apparently on some important matter.”