Mae Van Arsdale, who had listened in silence to the recital, was the first to break the spell. She rose, fluffed up her hair, straightened her blouse, and politely suppressed a yawn.
"Nonsense, Rosalie! You"re a silly little goose to make such a fuss over nothing.--Good-night, children. I"m going to bed now."
She sauntered toward the door, but paused on the threshold to drop the casual statement. "_I"ve_ been proposed to three times."
A shocked gasp arose from the circle at this _lese-majeste_. The disdainful condescension of a new girl was more than they could brook.
"She"s a horrid old thing, and I don"t believe a word she says!"
Priscilla declared stoutly, as she kissed poor crushed little Rosalie goodnight.
This slight _contretemps_ marked the beginning of strained relations.
Mae Mertelle gathered her own adherents, and Rosalie"s special coterie of friends rallied to the standard of their queen. They intimated to Mae"s followers that the quality of the romance was quite different in the two cases. Mae might be the heroine of any number of commonplace flirtations, but Rosalie was the victim of a _grande pa.s.sion_. She was marked with an indelible scar that she would carry to the grave. In the heat of their allegiance, they overlooked the crookedness of the hero"s nose and the avowed fact that Rosalie"s own affections had not been engaged.
But Mae"s trump card had been withheld. Whispers presently spread about under the seal of confidence. She was hopelessly in love. It was not a matter of the past vacation, but of the burning present. Her room-mate wakened in the night to hear her sobbing to herself. She had no appet.i.te--her whole table could testify to that. In the middle of dessert, even on ice-cream nights, she would forget to eat, and with her spoon half-raised, would sit staring into s.p.a.ce. When reminded that she was at the table, she would start guiltily and hastily bolt the rest of the meal. Her enemies unkindly commented upon the fact that she always came to before the end, so she got as much as anybody else.
The English cla.s.ses at St. Ursula"s were weekly drilled in the old-fashioned art of letter writing. The girls wrote letters home, minutely descriptive of school life. They addressed imaginary girl friends, and grandmothers and college brothers and baby sisters. They were learning the great secret of literary forcefulness--to suit their style to their audience. Ultimately, they arrived at the point of thanking imaginary young men for imaginary flowers. Mae listened to the somewhat stilted phraseology of these polite and proper notes with a supercilious smile. The cla.s.s, covertly regarding her, thrilled anew.
Gradually, the details of the romance spread abroad. The man was English--Mae had met him on the steamer--and some day when his elder brother died (the brother was suffering from an incurable malady that would carry him off in a few years) he would come into the t.i.tle; though just what the t.i.tle was, Mae had not specifically stated. But in any case, her father was a staunch American; he hated the English and he hated t.i.tles. No daughter of his should ever marry a foreigner. If she did, she would never receive a dollar from him. However, neither Mae nor Cuthbert cared about the money. Cuthbert had plenty of his own. His name was Cuthbert St. John. (p.r.o.nounced Sinjun.) He had four names in all, but those were the two he used the most. He was in England now, having been summoned by cable, owing to the critical condition of his brother"s health, but the crisis was past, and Cuthbert would soon be returning.
Then--Mae closed her lips in a straight line and stared defiantly into s.p.a.ce. Her father should see!
Before the throbbing reality of this romance, Rosalie"s poor little history paled into nothing.
Then the plot began to thicken. Studying the lists of incoming steamers, Mae announced to her room-mate that he had landed. He had given his word to her father not to write; but she knew that in some way she should hear. And sure enough! The following morning brought a nameless bunch of violets. There had been doubters before--but at this tangible proof of devotion, skepticism crumbled.
Mae wore her violets to church on Sunday. The school mixed its responses in a shocking fashion--n.o.body pretended to follow the service; all eyes were fixed on Mae"s upturned face and far-off smile. Patty Wyatt pointed out that Mae had taken special pains to seat herself in the light of a stained-gla.s.s window, and that occasionally the rapt eyes scanned the faces of her companions, to make sure that the effect was reaching across the footlights. But Patty"s insinuation was indignantly repudiated by the school.
Mae was at last triumphantly secure in the role of leading lady. Poor insipid Rosalie no longer had a speaking part.
The affair ran on for several weeks, gathering momentum as it moved. In the European Travel Cla.s.s that met on Monday nights, "English Country Seats" was the subject of one of the talks, ill.u.s.trated by the stereopticon. As a stately, terraced mansion, with deer cropping gra.s.s in the foreground, was thrown upon the screen, Mae Mertelle suddenly grew faint. She vouchsafed no reason to the housekeeper who came with hot-water bottles and cologne; but later, she whispered to her room-mate that that was the house where he was born.
Violets continued to arrive each Sat.u.r.day, and Mae became more and more _distrait_. The annual basket-ball game with Highland Hall, a near-by school for girls, was imminent. St. Ursula"s had been beaten the year before; it would mean everlasting disgrace if defeat met them a second time, for Highland Hall was a third their size. The captain harangued and scolded an apathetic team.
"It"s Mae Mertelle and her beastly violets!" she disgustedly grumbled to Patty. "She"s taken all the fight out of them."
The teachers, meanwhile, were uneasily aware that the atmosphere was overcharged. The girls stood about in groups, thrilling visibly when Mae Mertelle pa.s.sed by. There was a moonlight atmosphere about the school that was not conducive to high marks in Latin prose composition. The matter finally became the subject of an anxious faculty meeting. There was no actual data at hand; it was all surmise, but the source of the trouble was evident. The school had been swept before by a wave of sentiment; it was as catching as the measles. The Dowager was inclined to think that the simplest method of clearing the atmosphere would be to pack Mae Mertelle and her four trunks back to the paternal fireside, and let her foolish mother deal with the case. Miss Lord was characteristically bent upon fighting it out. She would stop the nonsense by force. Mademoiselle, who was inclined to sentiment, feared that the poor child was really suffering. She thought sympathy and tact--But Miss Sallie"s bluff common-sense won the day. If the sanity of Saint Ursula"s demanded it, Mae Mertelle must go; but she thought, by the use of a little diplomacy, both St. Ursula"s sanity and Mae Mertelle might be preserved. Leave the matter to her. She would use her own methods.
Miss Sallie was the Dowager"s daughter. She managed the practical end of the establishment--provided for the table, ruled the servants, and ran off, with the utmost ease, the two hundred acres of the school farm.
Between the details of horseshoeing and haying and b.u.t.ter-making, she lent her abilities wherever they were needed. She never taught; but she disciplined. The school was noted for unusual punishments, and most of them originated in Miss Sallie"s brain. Her t.i.tle of "Dragonette" was bestowed in respectful admiration of her mental qualities.
The next day was Tuesday, Miss Sallie"s regular time for inspecting the farm. As she came downstairs after luncheon drawing on her driving gloves, she just escaped stepping on Conny Wilder and Patty Wyatt who, flat on their stomachs, were trying to poke out a golf ball from under the hat-rack.
"h.e.l.lo, girls!" was her cheerful greeting. "Wouldn"t you like a little drive to the farm? Run and tell Miss Wadsworth that you are excused from afternoon study. You may stay away from Current Events this evening, and make it up."
The two scrambled into hats and coats in excited delight. A visit to Round Hill Farm with Miss Sallie, was the greatest good that St.
Ursula"s had to offer. For Miss Sallie--out of bounds--was the funniest, most companionable person in the world. After an exhilarating five-mile drive through a brown and yellow October landscape, they spent a couple of hours romping over the farm, had milk and ginger cookies in Mrs.
Spence"s kitchen; and started back, wedged in between cabbages and eggs and b.u.t.ter. They chatted gaily on a dozen different themes--the Thanksgiving masquerade, a possible play, the coming game with Highland Hall, and the lamentable new rule that made them read the editorials in the daily papers. Finally, when conversation flagged for a moment, Miss Sallie dropped the casual inquiry:
"By the way, girls, what _has_ got into Mae Van Arsdale? She droops about in corners and looks as dismal as a molting chicken."
Patty and Conny exchanged a glance.
"Of course," Miss Sallie continued cheerfully, "it"s perfectly evident what the trouble is. I haven"t been connected with a boarding-school for ten years for nothing. The little idiot is posing as the object of an unhappy affection. You know that I never favor talebearing, but, just as a matter of curiosity, is it the young man who pa.s.ses the plate in church, or the one who sells ribbon in Marsh and Elkins"s?"
"Neither." Patty grinned. "It"s an English n.o.bleman."
"What?" Miss Sallie stared.
"And Mae"s father hates English n.o.blemen," Conny explained, "and has forbidden him ever to see her again."
"Her heart is broken," said Patty sadly. "She"s going into a decline."
"And the violets?" inquired Miss Sallie.
"He promised not to send her any letters, but violets weren"t mentioned."
"H"m, I see!" said Miss Sallie; and, after a moment of thought, "Girls, I am going to leave this matter in your hands. I want it stopped."
"In our hands?"
"The school can"t be stirred up any longer; but the matter"s too silly to warrant the teachers taking any notice of it. This is a thing that ought to be regulated by public opinion. Suppose you see what you can do--I will appoint you a committee to bring the school back to a solid basis of common sense. I know that I can trust you not to talk."
"I don"t exactly see what we can do," said Patty, dubiously.
"You are usually not without resourcefulness," Miss Sallie returned with a flickering smile. "You may have a _carte blanche_ to choose your own methods."
"And may we tell Priscilla?" Conny asked. "We must tell her because we three--"
"Hunt together?" Miss Sallie nodded. "Tell Priscilla, and let it stop at that."
The next afternoon, when Martin drove into the village to accomplish the daily errands, he dropped Patty and Priscilla at the florists, empowered by the school to purchase flowers for the rector"s wife and new baby. They turned inside, their minds entirely occupied with the rival merits of red and white roses. They ordered their flowers, inscribed the card, and then waited aimlessly till Martin should return to pick them up. Pa.s.sing down the counter, they came upon a bill-sticker, the topmost item being, "Violets every Sat.u.r.day to Miss Mae Van Arsdale, St. Ursula"s School."
They stopped and stared for a thoughtful moment. The florist followed their gaze.
"Do you happen to know the young lady who ordered them vi"lets?" he inquired. "She didn"t leave any name, and I"d like to know if she wants me to keep on sending "em. She only paid up to the first, and the price is going up."
"No, I don"t know who it was," said Patty, with well-a.s.sumed indifference. "What did she look like?"
"She--she had on a blue coat," he suggested. As all sixty-four of the St. Ursula girls wore blue coats, his description was not helpful.
"Oh," Patty prompted, "was she quite tall with a lot of yellow hair and--"
"That"s her!"
He recognized the type with some a.s.surance.
"It"s Mae herself!" Priscilla whispered excitedly.
Patty nodded and commanded silence.