QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
"Oh, Molly, what was that awful black wagon that went up the avenue a
few minutes ago?" demanded half a dozen voices as she opened the door
into her own room.
"The freshman at the Infirmary who was threatened with typhoid fever is
getting well," remarked Margaret Wakefield.
"Surely, nothing has happened to any of the Wellington girls?" put in
Jessie uneasily.
"No, no," answered Molly, "nothing so terrible as that, thank goodness.
It wasn't an undertaker's wagon, but an ambulance." She paused. It would
be rather hard on Nance to tell the news about Andy before all the
girls.
"It looked something like the Exmoor ambulance," here observed Katherine
Williams.
Molly was silent. Suppose she should tell the sad news and Nance should
break down and make a scene. It would be cruel. "I'll wait until they
go," she decided. But this was not easy.
"Who was in the ambulance, Molly?" asked Judy impatiently. "I should
think you would have had curiosity enough to have noticed where it
stopped."
It was no use wrinkling her eyebrows at Judy or trying to evade her
direct questions. The inquisitive girl went on:
"Wasn't that Dr. McLean on the seat with the driver?"
"Naturally he would be there, being the only physician in Wellington,"
replied Molly.
Then Lawyer Wakefield began a series of cross-questions that fairly made
the poor girl quail.
"In which direction were you going when you met the ambulance?" asked
this persistent judge.
"I was coming this way, of course."
"And you mean to say your curiosity didn't prompt you to turn around and
see where the ambulance stopped?"
"I didn't say that," faltered Molly, feeling very much like a prisoner
at the bar.
"You did turn and look then? Was it toward the faculty houses or the
Quadrangle that the ambulance was driving?"
"Well, really, Judge Wakefield, I think I had better seek legal advice
before replying to your questions."
Margaret laughed.
"I only wanted to prove to myself that the only way to get at the truth
of a matter is by a system of questions which require direct answers.
It's like the game of 'Twenty Questions,' which is the most interesting
game in the world when it's properly played. Once I guessed the ring on
the Pope's finger in six questions just by careful deduction. It's
easier to get at the truth by subtracting than adding----"
"Truth, indeed. You haven't got a bit nearer than any of us," burst in
the incorrigible Judy. "With all your legal mind you haven't made Molly
tell us who was in the ambulance, and of course she knows. She has
never said she didn't, yet."
Molly felt desperately uncomfortable. She wished now that she had told
them in the beginning. It had only made matters worse not to tell.
"Molly, you are the strangest person. What possible reason could you
have for keeping secret who was in the ambulance? Was it one of the
students or one of the faculty?" demanded Nance.
"People who live in the country say that calves are the most inquisitive
creatures in the world, but I think girls are," remarked Molly.
"This is as good as a play," cried one of the Williams girls, "a real
play behind footlights, to sit here and look on at this little comedy of
curiosity. You've asked every conceivable question under the sun, and
Molly there has never told a thing. Now I happen to know that the
ambulance is connected with the sanitarium over near Exmoor. I saw it
once when we were walking, and it is therefore probably bringing someone
from Exmoor here. Then if you wish to inquire further by the 'deductive
method,' as Judge Wakefield calls it: who at Exmoor has connections at
Wellington?"
"Dodo Green and Andy McLean," said Judy quickly.
"Exactly," answered Edith.
Nance's eyes met Molly's and in a flash she understood why her friend
had been parrying the questions of the other girls. It was to save her
from a shock.
Perhaps some of the other girls recognized this, too, for Margaret and
the Williamses rose at the same moment and made excuses to go, and the
others soon followed. Only blundering and thoughtless Judy remained to
blunder more.
"Molly Brown," she exclaimed, "you have been getting so full of
mysteries and secrets lately that you might as well live in a tower all
alone. Now, why----"
"Is he very badly hurt, Molly?" interrupted Nance in a cold, even voice,
not taking the slightest notice of Judy's complaints.
"Pretty badly, Nance. The journey over from Exmoor was harder on him
than they thought it would be. I stood beside the stretcher for a
minute."
Nance walked over to the side window and looked across the campus in the
direction of the McLean house. On the small section of the avenue which
could be seen from that point she caught a glimpse of the ambulance
making its return trip to Exmoor.
She turned quickly and went back to her chair.
"It looks like a hearse," she said miserably.
"Is it Andy?" asked Judy of Molly in a whisper.
Molly nodded her head.
"What a chump I've been!" ejaculated Judy.
"It happened the night of the carnival, of course," pursued Nance.
"Yes."
"It was all my fault," she went on quietly. "I would coast down one of
those long hills and Andy didn't want me to. I knew I could, and I
wanted to show him how well I could skate. Then, just as we got to the
bottom, my heel came off and we both tumbled. It didn't hurt us, but
Andy was provoked, and then we quarreled. Of course, walking back made
us late and he missed the others."
"But, dear Nance, it might have happened just the same, even if he had
been with the others," argued Molly.
"No, it couldn't have been so bad. He must have been lying in the snow a
long time before they found him, and was probably half frozen," she went
on, ruthlessly inflicting pain on herself.
"They did go back and find him, fortunately," admitted Molly.
"He was the first and only boy friend I have ever had," continued Nance
in a tone of extreme bitterness. "I always thought I was a wallflower
until I met him. Other girls like you two and Jessie have lots of
friends and can spare one. But I haven't any to spare. I only have
Andy." Her voice broke and she began to sob, "Oh, why was I so stubborn
and cruel that night?"
Judy crept over and locked the door. She was sore in mind and body at
sight of Nance's misery.
"I feel like a whipped cur," she thought. "Just as if someone had beaten
me with a stick. Poor old Nance!"
"You mustn't feel so hopeless about it, Nance dear," Molly was saying.
"I'm sure he'll pull through. They wouldn't have brought him all this
distance if he had been so badly off."
"They have brought him home to die!" cried Nance fiercely. "And I did
it. I did it!" she rocked herself back and forth. "I want to be alone,"
she said suddenly.
"Of course, dear Nance, no one shall disturb you," said Molly, taking a
pile of books off the table and a "Busy" sign, which she hung on the
door. "We'll bring up your supper. Don't come down this evening."
But when the girls returned some hours later with a tray of food, Nance
had gone to bed and turned her face to the wall, and she refused to eat
a morsel. All next day it was the same. Nance remained in bed,
ruthlessly cutting lessons and refusing to take anything but a cup of
soup at lunch time. The girls called at Dr. McLean's to inquire for
Andy and found that his condition was much the same. Nance's condition
was the same, too. She turned a deaf ear to all their arguments and
declined to be reasoned with.
"She can't lie there forever," Judy exclaimed at last.
"But what are we to do, Judy?" Molly asked. "She's just nursing her
troubles until she'll go into melancholia! I would go to Mrs. McLean,
but she won't see anyone and the doctor is too unhappy to listen. I
tried to tell him about Nance and he didn't hear a word I was saying. I
didn't realize how much they adored Andy."
Judy could offer no suggestion and Molly went off to the Library to
think.
It occurred to her that Professor Green might give her some advice. He
knew all about the friendship between Nance and Andy, and, besides, he
had interested himself once before in Nance's troubles when he arranged
for her to go to the McLeans' supper party the year before. Molly
glanced at the clock. It was nearly half-past four.
"He'll probably be in his little cloister study right now," she said to
herself, and in three minutes she was rapping on the oak door in the
corridor marked "E. Green."
"Come in," called the Professor.
He was sitting at his study table, his back turned to her, writing
busily.
"You're late, Dodo," he continued, without looking up. "I expected you
in time for lunch. Sit down and wait. I can't stop now. Don't speak to
me for fifteen minutes. I'm finishing something that must go by the six
o'clock mail."
Molly sank into the depths of the nearest chair while the Professor's
pen scratched up and down monotonously. Not since the famous night of
her Freshman year when she was locked in the cloisters had she been in
the Professor's sanctum, and she looked about her with much curiosity.
"I wish I had one just like it," she thought. "It's so peaceful and
quiet, just the place to work in and write books on 'The Elizabethan
Drama,' and lyric poetry, and comic operas----"
There was a nice leathery smell in the atmosphere of book bindings
mingled with tobacco smoke, and the only ornament she could discover,
except a small bronze bust of Voltaire and a life mask of Keats, was a
glazed paper weight in the very cerulean blue she herself was so fond
of. It caught the fading light from the window and shone forth from the
desk like a bit of blue sky.
Molly was sitting in a high back leather chair, which quite hid her from
Judith Blount, who presently, knocking on the door and opening it at the
same moment, entered the room like a hurricane.
"Cousin Edwin, may I come in? I want to ask you something----"
"I can't possibly see you now, Judith. You must wait until to-morrow.
I'm very busy."
"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed the girl and banged the door as she departed into
the corridor.
What a jarring element she was in all that peaceful stillness! The
muffled noises in the Quadrangle seemed a hundred miles away. Molly
rose and tiptoed to the door.
"He'll be angrier than ever if he should find me here," she thought.
"I'll just get out quietly and explain some other time."
Her hand was already on the doorknob when the Professor wheeled around
and faced her.
"Why, Miss Brown," he exclaimed, "was it you all the time? I might have
known my clumsy brother couldn't have been so quiet."
"Please excuse me," faltered Molly. "I am sure you are very busy. I am
awfully sorry to have disturbed you."
"Nonsense! It's only unimportant things I won't be bothered with, like
the absurd questions Judith thinks up to ask me and Dodo's gossip about
the fellows at Exmoor. But I am well aware that you never waste time. I
suspect you of being one of the busiest little ladies in Wellington."
Molly smiled. Somehow, she liked to be called a "little lady" by this
distinguished professor.
"But your letter that must go by the six mail?"
"That can wait until morning," he said.
He had just said it was to go at six, but, of course, he had a right to
change his mind.
"Sit down and tell me what's the trouble. Have you had bad news from
home?"
"No, it's about Nance," she began, and told him the whole story. "You
see," she finished, "Nance has had so few friends, and she is very fond
of Andy. Because she thinks the accident was her fault, she is just
grieving herself into an awful state."
The Professor sat with his chin resting on his hand.
"Poor little girl!" he said. "And the Doctor and Mrs. McLean are in
almost as bad a state themselves. You know it's just a chance that Andy
will pull through. He has developed pneumonia."
"Oh, dear, with all those broken bones and that terrible gash! Isn't it
dreadful?"
"Pretty bad. Have you tried talking to Miss Oldham?"
"I've tried everything and nothing will move her. It's just a kind of
stubborn misery that seems to have paralyzed her, mind and body."
The two sat in silence for a moment, then the Professor said:
"Suppose I go down to Queen's to-night and see Miss Oldham? Do you think
she could be induced to come down into Mrs. Markham's sitting room and
have a talk with me?"
"I should think so. She wouldn't have the courage to decline to see one
of the faculty."
"Very well. If she is roused to get up and come down stairs, she may
come to her senses. But don't go yet. I have something to tell you,
something that doesn't concern Miss Oldham but--er--myself. Do you
remember the opera I told you about?"
Molly nodded.
"It's going into rehearsal Christmas week and will open in six weeks.
Are you pleased?"
Molly was pleased, of course. She was always glad of other people's good
luck.
"How would you like to go to the opening?" he asked.
"It would be wonderful, but--but I don't see how I can. I told you there
were complications."
"Yes, I know," he answered, "but you're to forget complications that
night and enjoy my first attempt to be amusing."
"I'll try," answered Molly, not realizing how her reply might sound to
the author of the comic opera, who only smiled good-naturedly and said:
"The music will be pretty at any rate."
They sat talking about the opera for some time, in fact, until the tower
clock clanged six.
"I never dreamed it was so late," apologized Molly, "and I have kept you
all this time. I know you must be awfully busy. I hope you will forgive
me."
"Didn't I just say that your time was quite as important as mine?" he
said. "And when two very important people get together the moments are
not wasted."
That night the Professor did call on Nance at Queen's, and the unhappy
girl was obliged to get into her things as quickly as possible and go
down. What he said to her Molly and Judy never knew, but in an hour
Nance returned to them in a normal, sensible state of mind, and not
again did she turn her face to the wall and refuse to be comforted.
"There is no doubt in my mind that Professor Green is the nicest person
in Wellington, that is, of the faculty," thought Molly as she settled
under the reading lamp, and prepared to study her Lit. lesson.