"But you, David, you!" she protested, trying to choke off her sobs. "You're not disguised--"
"I'll stick to the kitchen. Nobody'll think of looking for me here." He grinned at her cheerfully. "Remember, Pop Bybee's on our side. He took us in when he thought I'd killed a man. I don't suppose he'll turn on us now, particularly since you're such a riot as Princess Lalla. I've been hearing how big you're going over in the Palace of Wonders."
"Honestly, David?" she brightened. "Do you like me dressed up like this?" and she made him a little curtsey.
"You sweet, sweet kid!" he laughed at her tenderly. "Like you like that? You're adorable! But I like your own wild-rose complexion better. Now scoot or I'll be put in irons for spoiling the supper."
Sally fled, but not before she had blown him an audacious kiss from the tips of her gilded-nailed fingers.
Winfield Bybee had entered the dining car during her talk with David and was seated at his own table, his thin, hatchet-faced wife opposite him. When he saw his new "Princess Lalla" almost skipping down the aisle, her eyes sparkling with joy at David's unexpected praise and tenderness, he muttered something to Mrs. Bybee, then beckoned the fantastically clad little figure to his table.
"Would her royal highness honor me and Mrs. Bybee with her presence at dinner this evening?" he boomed, his blue eyes twinkling.
When she had seated herself, after a little flurry of thanks, Bybee leaned toward her and spoke in a confidential undertone: "Me and the wife have seen that piece in the papers about you and Dave, Sally. What about it? Who's lying? You and the boy--or Carson?"
Sally had turned the little black lace veil back upon the jeweled-gilt crown, so that her big eyes showed like two round, polished sapphires set in bronze. Bybee, searching them with his keen, pale blue eyes, could find in them no guile, no cloud of guilt.
"David and I told you the truth, Mr. Bybee," she said steadily, but her lips trembled childishly. "You believe us, don't you? David is good, good!"
"All right," Bybee nodded his acceptance of her truthfulness. "Now what was that you was telling me and the wife about your mother?"
Sally's heart leaped with hope. "She--my mother--lived here in Stanton, Mr. Bybee. I have her address, the one she gave the orphanage twelve years ago when she put me there. But Miss Pond, who works in the office at the Home, said they had investigated and found she had moved away right after she put me in the orphanage. But I thought--I hoped--I could find out something while I'm here. But I suppose it would be too dangerous--I might get caught--and they'd send me to the reformatory--"