I do not mind being picked on by my parents or teachers, knowing it is for my own good. But I draw the line at Leila. So I replied:
"Knit! If that"s the scarf you were on at Christmas, and it looks like it, because there"s the crooked place you wouldn"t fix, let me tell you that since then I have made three socks, heals and all, and they are probably now on the feet of the Allies."
"Three!" she said. "Why THREE?"
"I had no more wool, and there are plenty of one-leged men anyhow."
I would fane have returned to my book, dreaming between lines, as it were, of the Romanse which had come into my life the day before. It is, I have learned, much more interesting to read a book when one has, or is, experiencing the Tender Pa.s.sion at the time. For during the love seens one can then fancy that the impasioned speaches are being made to oneself, by the object of one"s afection. In short, one becomes, even if but a time, the Heroine.
But I was to have no privacy.
"Bab," Sis said, in a more mild and fraternal tone, "I want you to do somthing for me."
"Why don"t you go and get it yourself?" I said. "Or ring for George?"
"I don"t want you to get anything. I want you to go to father and mother for somthing."
"I"d stand a fine chance to get it!" I said. "Unless it"s Calomel or advice."
Although not suspicous by nature, I now looked at her and saw why I had recieved the pink hoze. It was not kindness. It was bribery!
"It"s this," she explained. "The house we had last year at the seash.o.r.e is emty and we can have it. But mother won"t go. She--well, she won"t go. They"re going to open the country house and stay there."
A few days previously this would have been sad news for me, owing to not being allowed to go to the Country Club except in the mornings, and no chance to meet any new people, and no bathing save in the usual tub. But now I thriled at the information, because the Grays have a place near the Club also.
For a moment I closed my eyes and saw myself, all in white and decked with flours, wandering through the meadows and on the links with a certain Person whose name I need not write, having allready related my feelings toward him.
I am older now by some weeks, older and sader and wiser. For Tradgedy has crept into my life, so that somtimes I wonder if it is worth while to live on and suffer, especialy without an Allowence, and being again obliged to suplicate for the smallest things.
But I am being brave. And, as Carter Brooks wrote me in a recent letter, acompanying a box of candy:
"After all, Bab, you did your durndest. And if they do not understand, I do, and I"m proud of you. As for being "blited," as per your note to me, remember that I am, also. Why not be blited together?"
This latter, of course, is not serious, as he is eight years older than I, and even fills in at middle-aged Dinners, being handsome and dressing well, although poor.
Sis"s remarks were interupted by the clamor of the door bell. I placed a shaking hand over the Frat pin, beneath which my heart was beating only for HIM. And waited.
What was my dispair to find it but Carter Brooks!
Now there had been a time when to have Carter Brooks sit beside me, as now, and treat me as fully out in Society, would have thriled me to the core. But that day had gone. I realized that he was not only to old, but to flirtatous. He was one who would not look on a woman"s Love as precious, but as a plaything.
"Barbara," he said to me. "I do not beleive that Sister is glad to see me."
"I don"t have to look at you," Sis said, "I can knit."
"Tell me, Barbara," he said to me beseachingly, "am I as hard to look at as all that?"
"I rather like looking at you," I rejoined with cander. "Across the room."
He said we were not as agreable as we might be, so he picked up a magazine and looked at the Automobile advertizments.
"I can"t aford a car," he said. "Don"t listen to me, either of you.
I"m only talking to myself. But I like to read the ads. h.e.l.lo, here"s a snappy one for five hundred and fifty. Let me see. If I gave up a couple of Clubs, and smokeing, and flours to DEBUTANTES--except Barbara, because I intend to buy every pozy in town when she comes out--I might----"
"Carter," I said, "will you let me see that ad?"
Now the reason I had asked for it was this: in the book the Girl Detective had a small but powerful car, and she could do anything with it, even going up the Court House steps once in it and interupting a trial at the criticle moment.
But I did not, at that time, expect to more than wish for such a vehical. How pleasant, my heart said, to have a car holding to, and since there was to be no bathing, et cetera, and I was not allowed a horse in the country, except my old pony and the basket faeton, to ramble through the lanes with a choice Spirit, and talk about ourselves mostly, with a sprinkling of other subjects!
Five hundred and fifty from nine hundred and forty-five leaves three hundred and forty-five. But I need few garments at school, wearing mostly unaforms of blue serge with one party frock for Friday nights and receptions to Lecturers and Members of the Board. And besides, to own a machine would mean less carfare and no shoes to speak of, because of not walking.
Jane Raleigh came in about then and I took her upstairs and closed the door.
"Jane," I said, "I want your advise. And be honest, because it"s a serious matter."
"If it"s Tommy Gray," she said, in a contemptable manner, "don"t."
How could I know, as revealed later, that Jane had gone on a Diet since yesterday, owing to a certain remark, and had had nothing but an apple all day? I could not. I therfore stared at her steadily and observed:
"I shall never ask for advise in matters of the Heart. There I draw the line."
However, she had seen some caromels on my table, and suddenly burst into emotion. I was worried, not knowing the trouble and fearing that Jane was in love with Tom. It was a terrable thought, for which should I do? Hold on to him and let her suffer, or remember our long years of intimacy and give him up to her?
Should I or should I not remove his Frat pin?
However, I was not called upon to renunciate anything. In the midst of my dispair Jane asked for a Sandwitch and thus releived my mind. I got her some cake and a bottle of cream from the pantrey and she became more normle. She swore she had never cared for Tom, he being not her style, as she had never loved any one who had not black eyes.
"Nothing else matters, Bab," she said, holding out the Sandwitch in a dramatic way. "I see but his eyes. If they are black, they go through me like a knife."
"Blue eyes are true eyes," I observed.
"There is somthing feirce about black eyes," she said, finishing the cream. "I feel this way. One cannot tell what black eyes are thinking.
They are a mystery, and as such they atract me. Almost all murderers have black eyes."
"Jane!" I exclaimed.
"They mean pa.s.sion," she muzed. "They are STRONG eyes. Did you ever see a black-eyed man with gla.s.ses? Never. Bab, are you engaged to Tom?"
"Practicaly."
I saw that she wished details, but I am not that sort. I am not the kind to repeat what has been said to me in the emotion of Love. I am one to bury sentament deep in my heart, and have therfore the reputation of being cold and indiferent. But better that than having the Male s.e.x afraid to tell me how I effect them for fear of it being repeated to other girls, as some do.
"Of course it cannot be soon, if at all," I said. "He has three more years of College, and as you know, here they regard me as a child."
"You have your own income."
That reminded me of the reason for my having sought the privasy of my Chamber. I said: