SHADOWS BEFORE
The veranda was prettily lighted with Japanese lanterns and shaded
electric lights and Donald found chairs for Olive and himself in a
corner where they could see the dancers and yet not be interrupted, for
he wished to talk to her alone for a few moments, never having forgotten
the impression she had made upon him at their first meeting, nor the
peculiar likeness which he still saw in her to his mother.
But though Olive could not forget the Harmons, she had never really
liked them nor could she forgive the hurt which Elizabeth had innocently
brought upon her beloved Jack. And yet, as she knew that this attitude
on her part was hardly fair, she now turned to Donald. “I hope your
mother and Elizabeth are quite well,” she inquired with unconscious
coldness.
Donald felt the coldness, but answered at once. “Yes, they are both
unusually well these days, and if Beth could only hear that your friend
Miss Ralston was going to get quite well, why she would brace up a lot.
But she worries about her a great deal, so she and my mother have just
come out here to Tarrydale for a short visit to my aunt. I got away from
college for a few days to be with them and to see you ranch girls
again,” he ended honestly.
“You are very kind,” Olive murmured, watching the passers-by for a
glimpse of Jean or Frieda.
“Elizabeth and mother wish you to come over very soon and have tea with
them,” the young man urged, appearing not to notice his companion’s lack
of interest. “My aunt’s place is very near Primrose Hall, so you can
easily walk over.”
Olive shook her head. “I don’t believe Miss Winthrop would care to have
us go about the neighborhood making visits,” she announced, glad of what
seemed to her a reasonable excuse.
Donald laughed, although he did feel somewhat hurt by Olive’s manner.
“Don’t try to get out of coming to see us for any such cause, Miss
Olive,” he protested, “for Miss Winthrop is one of my aunt’s dearest
friends and she and my mother have known one another since they were
girls. Why, my aunt is one of the shareholders in this school and is
always offering prizes to the girls, a Shakespeare prize and perhaps
some others that I don’t know about. You see, I was going to ask Miss
Winthrop to bring you and Miss Bruce and Frieda over to us, as she
always comes to see my aunt every week, now that Aunt Agatha has grown
too old and too cranky to leave her place.”
Olive was essentially gentle in her disposition and knowing that Donald
had always been their friend in all family difficulties, she was sorry
to have seemed unkind. “I’ll tell Jean and Frieda,” she replied with
more enthusiasm, “and if Miss Winthrop is willing, why of course we will
be happy to come. You are staying at ‘The Towers,’ aren’t you, the white
house at the end of the woods with a tower at the top of it and queer
gabled windows and two absurd dogs on either side the front door?”
The young man nodded. “You have seen the place, haven’t you? We are
dreadfully ashamed of those dogs now, but we used to love them as
children; I suppose a good many generations of the children in our
family have had glorious rides on their backs.” Olive frowned, a wave of
color sweeping over her face which even in the glow of the artificial
lights Donald was able to see. “I wonder,” she said, “about that tower
room. Isn’t it very big, with guns and swords and things around the
walls, and books, and a man in armor standing in one corner?”
Donald stared, as Olive’s face went suddenly white again. “I am sorry I
made such a silly speech. Of course your tower room isn’t like that. I
think I must just have read of some such a room at the top of a house
somewhere that looks like yours. Only I want to ask you a few
questions.”
At this instant a pair of hands were suddenly clasped over Olive’s eyes
and a voice asked:
“Oh, tell me, lady, fair and blind,
Whose hands about thee are entwined?”
The voice there was little difficulty in recognizing, for Jean had come
up quietly behind Olive and Donald with Cecil Belknap and with Gerry
Ferrows and one of her friends. Jean promptly began a conversation with
Donald; Gerry and her friend, after being properly introduced to the
others, continued their discussion, so there was nothing for poor Olive
to do but to try to talk to Cecil.
Rather more sure of counting on Jean’s interest in his invitation than
Olive’s, Donald Harmon had promptly repeated his request to her, so that
for five minutes or more they were deep in questions and answers, Jean
laughingly reproaching Donald for not having asked her to dance all
evening, while he assured her that in vain had he tried to break through
the wall of her admirers. When a truce was finally declared Jean
smilingly accepted his invitation to tea and then turning stood for a
moment with her eyes dancing as she watched Olive’s struggle to keep up
a conversation with Cecil Belknap. The subject of the weather had
evidently been exhausted, also the beauty of the moon even now peeping
over one of the ridges of the Sleepy Hollow hills, and still Olive was
struggling bravely on without the least assistance from her superior
companion, who merely stared at her without volunteering a single
remark.
Jean’s laugh rang out mischievously. “I do ask your pardon, Olive, for
having left you to talk to Mr. Belknap so long. Just think,” she turned
to look up at the young man with her most demure expression, “I used to
think the sphinx a woman, but now I am entirely convinced that he or she
is a Harvard student, for surely nothing else could be so equally silent
and inscrutable.”
Cecil Belknap’s glasses slid off his nose. Could it be that this small
ranch girl, whom he had been trying to be nice to all evening on account
of his sister’s affection for her, was actually poking fun at him, a
Harvard Senior and heir to half a million dollars? The thing was
impossible! Had she not realized that his mere presence near her had
added to her social distinction all evening? Could it be that she had
also expected him to chatter with her like any ordinary schoolboy?
Winifred Graham would have had no such ridiculous ideas and Cecil now
hoped it was not too late to reduce Jean to a proper state of humility.
However, Jean at this moment, asking pardon for her rudeness, drew Olive
aside. “Olive,” she whispered in her friend’s ear in rather anxious and
annoyed tones, “have you seen anything of Frieda Ralston for the past
hour? I told that young lady to come and speak to one or the other of us
every half hour all this evening and she has never been near me a single
time. Has she spoken to you?”
Olive laughed, shaking her head. “No, Frieda has never spoken to me,”
she replied, “but once in dancing by me she did deign to smile as though
we had met somewhere before. Isn’t she funny?”
But Jean was not amused. “She’s perfectly ridiculous with her grown-up
airs and I wish Ruth were here to send her upstairs to bed. You know it
is nearly twelve o’clock, Olive, and our dance will be over at exactly
twelve and then Miss Winthrop expects each one of us to come up and
personally say good-night to her. Suppose Frieda and that Johnson child
should not be around, for I can’t find Mollie either. I wonder if they
have gone off anywhere with that long-legged grasshopper of a boy?”
“You take Frieda too seriously, Jean,” Olive murmured, “she is sure to
be in the parlor and will say good-night with the rest of us. You see,
we are so used to thinking of her as a baby that we can’t get used to
her independence.”
But the two ranch girls could not continue indefinitely to talk of
family matters with strangers waiting near them. Anyhow, just at this
moment the big clock in the hall, the same clock that Olive had listened
to so long on that first night at Primrose Hall, now slowly began to
boom forth the hour of midnight and at the same moment the music began
to play the farewell strains of the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz.
Cecil Belknap straightway offered his arm to Olive, not that he desired
her as a partner, but that he wished to punish Jean. A moment later
Gerry and her friend entered the ballroom, so that naturally Donald and
Jean were compelled to have this last dance together. Of course Donald
would have preferred Olive, but any ranch girl was sure of being second
best. However, Donald need not have worried over Jean’s being forced
upon him, for no sooner had they come into the parlor with the other
dancers, than two young fellows, seizing hold of Jean, declared she had
promised the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz to both of them, and almost
forcibly bore her away to divide the dance between them.
So with nothing better left to do, Donald stood for a moment watching
Olive and Cecil Belknap. They were having a conspicuously sad time, for
Cecil could not dance and so Olive was miserable. Rushing to the rescue,
Donald bore his first partner away and now Cecil had the desire of his
heart. For Jean’s benefit he spent the closing moments of the evening in
the society of her rival, Winifred Graham. However, the young man would
have been better satisfied could he have known whether or not the
western girl noticed his desertion. His sister had asked him to be nice
to Jean in order that the mere influence of his presence near her might
induce her classmates to vote for her, and yet she had not appeared
particularly grateful. It is the old story with a girl or a woman.
Strange, but she never seems to care for a man’s attention when he makes
a martyr of himself for her sake!
However, in these last few minutes of the dance the older ranch girls
were concerned only with thoughts of Frieda. Nowhere about the great
room could she be seen, not even after the young men guests had gone
away and the girls had formed in line to say good-night to Miss Winthrop
and Jessica Hunt. Olive and Jean were separated by several students and
yet the same questions traveled from one face to the other. “Suppose
Miss Winthrop asks us what has become of Frieda, what must we say, and
what will she do if, after trusting Frieda and Mollie, they have gotten
into some kind of mischief?”
Two steps at a time, the two girls, when their own good-nights had been
said and no questions asked, rushed upstairs to their bedrooms. But
outside Jean’s door Olive suddenly stopped and laughed. “Frieda is such
a baby, she has only gone upstairs to bed. Of course she has said
good-night long ago.”
Cautiously they thrust open the door; a dim light was burning inside the
room and a maid had turned down Frieda’s bed, but that young lady was
not in it, neither was there any sign of her presence about the place.
Jean slipped across the hall to the Johnson girls’ room. “Lucy says
Mollie hasn’t come upstairs either,” she reported immediately, “so what
on earth shall we do? Miss Sterne has charge of our floor to-night and
will be around in a few minutes to see that we are ready for bed. Then
if Frieda isn’t here, won’t she just get it?” Jean was almost in tears
from nervousness and vexation, having always tried to keep Frieda a
little bit in order. Now that Frieda no longer paid any attention to
her, she was both angry and frightened.
“I will slip downstairs and look for her,” Olive suggested faintly,
knowing that she could never get downstairs and back again before Miss
Sterne’s appearance and feeling that the vanishment of two girls might
be even more conspicuous and draw greater wrath down upon their heads
than the disappearance of one.
“Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers would surely see you
prowling around and would have to know the reason why, so that wouldn’t
help the present situation,” Jean answered. “Surely Frieda will be here
in a few minutes.” All up and down the hall the opening and shutting of
bedroom doors could now be heard and the voices of the other girls
bidding Miss Sterne and each other good-night.