But with my new puffs on the back of my head, and my letter in my pocket, I wasn"t easy to discourage. Thoburn shouldered his pick and, headed by Doctor Barnes, the ice-cutters started out in single file.
As they pa.s.sed the news stand Doctor Barnes glanced at me, and my heart almost stopped.
"Do they--is it a match?" he asked, with his eyes on mine.
I couldn"t speak, but I nodded "yes," and all that afternoon I could see the wonderful smile that lit up his face as he went out. It made him almost good-looking. Oh, there"s nothing like love, especially if you"ve waited long enough to be hungry for it, and not spoiled your taste for it by a bite here and a piece of a heart there, beforehand, so to speak.
Miss Cobb stopped at the news stand on her way to the gymnasium. She was a homely woman at any time, and in her bloomers she looked like a soup-bone. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances she"d have seen the puffs from the staircase and have asked what they cost and told me they didn"t match, in one breath. But she had something else on her mind. She padded over to the counter in her gym shoes, and for once she"d forgotten her legs.
"May I speak to you, Minnie?" she asked.
"You mostly do," I said. "There isn"t a new rule about speaking, is there?"
"This is important, Minnie," she said, rolling her eyes around as she always did when she was excited. "I"m in such a state of ex--I see you bought the puffs! Perhaps you will lend them to me if we arrange for a country dance."
"They don"t match," I objected. "They--they wouldn"t look natural, Miss Cobb."
"They don"t look natural on you, either. Do you suppose anybody believes that the Lord sent you hair in seventeen rows of pipes, so that, red as it is, it looks like an instantaneous water-heater?"
"I"m not lending them," I said firmly. It would have been like lending an engagement ring, to my mind. Miss Cobb was not offended. She went at once to what had brought her, and bent over the counter.
"Where"s the Summers woman?" she asked.
"In the gym. She"s made herself a new gym suit out of her polka dotted silk, and she looks lovely."
"Humph!" retorted Miss Cobb. "Minnie, you love Miss Jennings almost like a daughter, don"t you?"
"Like a sister, Miss Cobb," I said. "I"m not feeble yet."
"Well, you wouldn"t want to see her deceived."
"I wouldn"t have it," I answered.
"Then what do you call this?" She put a small package on the counter, and stared at me over it. "There"s treachery here, black treachery." She pointed one long thin forefinger at the bundle.
"What is it? A bomb?" I asked, stepping back. More than once it had occurred to me that having royalty around sometimes meant dynamite. Miss Cobb showed her teeth.
"Yes, a bomb," she said. "Minnie, since that creature took my letters and my er--protectors, I have suspected her. Now listen. Yesterday I went over the letters and I missed one that beautiful one in verse, beginning, "Oh, creature of the slender form and face!" Minnie, it had disappeared--melted away."
"I"m not surprised," I said.
"And so, last night, when the Summers woman was out, goodness knows where, Blanche Moody and I went through her room. We did not find my precious missive from Mr. Jones, but we did find these, Minnie, tied around with a pink silk stocking."
"Heavens!" I said, mockingly. "Not a pink silk!"
"Pink," she repeated solemnly. "Minnie, I have felt it all along. Mr.
Oskar von Inwald is the prince himself."
"No!"
"Yes. And more than that, he is making desperate love to Miss Summers.
Three of those letters were written in one day! Why, even Mr. Jones--"
"The wretch!" I cried. I was suddenly savage. I wanted to take Mr. von Inwald by the throat and choke him until his lying tongue was black, to put the letters where Miss Patty could never see them. I wanted--I had to stop to sell Senator Biggs some chewing-gum, and when he had gone, Miss Cobb was reaching out for the bundle. I s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her.
"Give me those letters instantly," she cried shrilly. But I marched from behind the counter and over to the fireplace.
"Never," I said, and put the package on the log. When they were safely blazing, I turned and looked at Miss Cobb.
"I"d put my hand right beside those letters to save Miss Patty a heartache," I said, "and you know it."
"You"re a fool." She was raging. "You"ll let her marry him and have the heartaches afterward."
"She won"t marry him," I snapped, and walked away with my chin up, leaving her staring.
But I wasn"t so sure as I pretended to be. Mr. von Inwald and Mr.
Jennings had been closeted together most of the morning, and Mr. von Inwald was whistling as he started out for the military walk. It seemed as if the very thing that had given Mr. Pierce his chance to make good had improved Mr. Jennings" disposition enough to remove the last barrier to Miss Jennings" wedding with somebody else.
Well, what"s one man"s meat is another man"s poison.
CHAPTER XXVIII
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE
Even if we hadn"t known, we"d have guessed there was something in the air. There was an air of subdued excitement during the rest hour in the spring-house, and a good bit of whispering and laughing, in groups which would break up with faces as long as the moral law the moment they saw my eye on them.
They were planning a mutiny, as you may say, and I guess no sailors on a pirate ship were more afraid of the captain"s fist than they were of Mr.
Pierce"s disapproval. He"d been smart enough to see that most of them, having bullied other people all their lives, liked the novelty of being bullied themselves. And now they were getting a new thrill by having a revolt. They were terribly worked up.
Miss Patty stayed after the others had gone, sitting in front of the empty fireplace in the same chair Mr. Pierce usually took, and keeping her back to me. When I"d finished folding the steamer rugs and putting them away, I went around and stood in front of her.
"Your eyes are red," I remarked.
"I"ve got a cold." She was very haughty.
"Your nose isn"t red," I insisted. "And, anyhow, you say you never have a cold."
"I wish you would let me alone, Minnie." She turned her back to me. "I dare say I may have a cold if I wish."
"Do you know what they are saying here?" I demanded. "Do you know that Miss Cobb has found out in some way or other who Mr. von Inwald is?
And that the four o"clock gossip edition says your father has given his consent and that you can go and buy a diadem or whatever you are going to wear, right off?"
"Well," she said, in a choked voice, with her back to me, "what of it?
Didn"t you and Mr. Pierce both do your best to bring it about?"
"Our what?" I couldn"t believe my ears.