Joy wheeled on her stool.
"For a minute," she said. "I"m busy."
"It will only take a minute, I fancy. When do you intend to acknowledge the book you hid in Blue Bonnet Ashe"s drawer while she was away?"
The shock was so sudden--so unexpected--that Joy Cross grew faint. Every vestige of color died out of her face.
"I don"t know what you mean," she said slowly. "What are you talking about?"
"You know what I"m talking about, all right. Do you remember the day two weeks ago when we were out walking and stopped in that queer little book shop? One of the girls wanted to get her Quatre-vingt-treize. You went to another part of the shop--alone. I came up behind you--something had attracted my attention--you didn"t see me. I heard you ask for the book--I will not mention the name. I saw the clerk hand it to you--give you your change. Saw the whole transaction with my own eyes! This is no hearsay."
Joy Cross turned round to the piano and hid her face in her hands.
"I haven"t words to express my opinion of you, Joy Cross," Annabel went on. "A girl who would put another girl in the position you have put Blue Bonnet Ashe--as honest and innocent a girl as ever drew the breath of life. You"re a coward--a miserable--"
Joy turned and threw out her hand beseechingly.
"Wait," she said, "please wait! I want to tell you. I"m all you say, perhaps--but--if you would only listen--"
Annabel had turned away impatiently.
"I didn"t mean to hurt Blue Bonnet Ashe--please believe that, Annabel.
It was all a mistake--an accident. I thought it would right itself, and I kept still. I did buy the book--I was reading it in my room; some one knocked at the door--I was sitting by Blue Bonnet"s bureau--I reached over and laid it in her drawer--just until I opened the door. I meant to take it right out again--but--it was Miss Martin. She was inspecting drawers--she found the book--she--I--oh, can"t you see how it was--how it all happened--so quickly? I couldn"t think of anything but the disgrace. I wanted to save myself. I wouldn"t have cared so much if I hadn"t been a Senior. I thought it might keep me from graduating--from some of the honors that I have fought for. I never dreamed it would go so far. I thought--oh, I don"t know what I thought--why I did it. I suppose I"m ruined utterly."
She burst into the wildest weeping. Tears sprang to Annabel"s own eyes.
She was a sympathetic girl. She wished she could bring herself to put her arm round Joy--to give her a word of encouragement--but she couldn"t. There was something that repelled her in the convulsed form; the thin body with its narrow, heaving shoulders; the unattractive blond head.
"Well, there is only one thing to do now, of course you understand that, Joy. You must go to Miss North immediately."
Joy raised her head; her eyes wide with terror.
"Oh, no, not that! I can"t do that. I can"t! I can"t!"
"You _will_," Annabel said sternly. "Stop that crying! Haven"t you any nerve at all? You will go to Miss North at once! Immediately, do you understand? or I will. An innocent girl has suffered long enough."
Annabel had drawn herself up to her full height. Her cheeks blazed. She was a fair representative of her ill.u.s.trious grandsire as she stood there, her fighting blood up.
"You understand? You go at once--this minute!"
Joy staggered to her feet. Annabel watched her as she started for the door; followed her as she crossed the building to her own room and paused.
Annabel paused too, but only for a second.
"Miss North is in her office at this hour," she said. "Go immediately"--and Joy went, her limbs almost refusing to bear her to the floor below.
What transpired in that office will never be known to any one save Miss North and Joy Cross. The gong had sounded for dinner before Joy emerged, white and silent, and neither she nor Miss North appeared at the evening meal.
Blue Bonnet felt better after she had confided in Annabel. She scarcely knew why, except that Annabel seemed to see a way out of the difficulty, and she had the reputation of being reliable and level headed.
With a lighter heart than she had known for several days, she dressed for dinner and entered the dining-room with a smile on her lips.
"Praise be!" Sue said, when Blue Bonnet laughed at one of her jokes. "I thought you had given up laughing, Blue Bonnet. You haven"t even smiled since Tuesday. Coming down to the Gym to dance to-night?"
"I think I will. I"ve got to run up-stairs first and get a clean handkerchief."
She ran up-stairs lightly, and, entering her room, switched on the light. She started for the bureau, but the sight of her room-mate, stretched face downward on her bed, arrested and changed her course.
"Why, Joy," she said, "what on earth"s the matter? Haven"t you been to dinner?"
Joy Cross sat up. She was as pitiable a looking sight as one could imagine. Her face, always white and expressionless, was ashen, and she shook with nervousness.
Blue Bonnet was horrified at her appearance and started for the door to call Mrs. Goodwin or Miss Martin.
"Wait," Joy called, her eyes burning into Blue Bonnet"s. "Wait!"
She pulled herself together, struggling for self control.
"I want to tell you--" the words came with painful effort--"I _must_ tell you. I"ve been a coward long enough. _I_ put that book in your drawer."
The utter hopelessness in the voice swept all thought of anger from Blue Bonnet"s heart, and flooded it with pity. She could not find voice to speak for a moment.
"You, Joy? You! I can"t believe it!"
A look of pride flashed over Joy"s face. In that brief second she stood once more on her old ground--trusted, respected.
"I suppose not," she said dully, and the flush died from her face. "No one would have believed me so wicked! They don"t know me as I am."
Tears welled in her eyes.
"Tell me about it, Joy, please. I know you didn"t do it on purpose. You couldn"t have. I never did anything to make you hate me like that."
She went over to the grate and stirring the embers into a ruddy glow drew up a chair and coaxed Joy into it.
"Now we can talk better," she said, sitting down on the hearth rug beside her. "Tell me how it happened. It"s been such a mystery to me."
Joy glanced down into the face upturned in the firelight and almost gasped at its serenity. There was not a trace of anger in the eyes lifted to her own--nothing but kindness--and that look, somehow, made it harder to proceed than any torrent of words.
Between long pauses Joy told Blue Bonnet all that she had told Annabel Jackson and Miss North; and Blue Bonnet listened breathlessly, a little sigh escaping her lips as Joy finished the story.
There was tense silence for a minute, and then Blue Bonnet reached up shyly and took Joy"s hand in her own.
"I suppose I ought to be awfully angry at you, Joy, for letting me suffer as I have the past few days--but--somehow--I"m not--at all. I feel so sorry for you that there isn"t any room for anger. I think I can understand how it happened."
"You can! It doesn"t seem possible that any one could see my side."
Blue Bonnet gazed into the fire and spoke slowly.
"Oh, yes, they could. All but the untruth, Joy--that was the worst, of course--but then--maybe you haven"t been brought up on the truth as I have. The truth is a sort of religion in our family. That and "do unto others.""