Dominick Murphy, a protégé of the school, and an intimate acquaintance
of her own, regarding her with impish delight.
"Hey, youse! Give us a song and dance."
"At least our friends don't recognize us," said Conny, drawing what
comfort she could from her incognito.
Quite a crowd had gathered by now, and it was rapidly growing larger.
Pedestrians had to make a detour into the street in order to get past.
"It wouldn't take us long," said Patty, a spark of mischief breaking
through the blankness of her face, "to earn money enough for a
carriage--you thump the tambourine and I'll dance the sailor's
hornpipe."
"Patty! Behave yourself." Conny for once brought a dampening supply of
common sense to bear on her companion. "We're going to graduate in
another week. For goodness' sake, _don't_ let's get expelled first."
She grasped her by the elbow and shoved her insistently down a side
street. John Drew Murphy and his friends followed for several blocks,
but having gazed their fill, and perceiving that the Gypsies had no
entertainment to offer, they gradually dropped away.
"Well, what shall we do?" asked Conny when they had finally shaken off
the last of the small boys.
"I s'pose we could walk."
"Walk!" Conny exhibited her flapping sole. "You don't expect me to walk
three miles in that shoe?"
"Very well," said Patty. "What _shall_ we do?"
"We might go back to the photographer's and borrow some car-fare."
"No! I'm not going to parade myself the length of Main Street again with
_that_ hole in my stocking."
"Very well," Conny shrugged. "Think of something."
"I suppose we could go to the livery stable and--"
"It's on the other side of town--I can't flap all that distance. Every
time I take a step, I have to lift my foot ten inches high."
"Very well." It was Patty's turn to shrug. "Perhaps you can think of
something better?"
"I think the simplest way would be to take a car, and ask the conductor
to charge it to us."
"Yes--and explain for the benefit of all the passengers that we belong
at St. Ursula's School? It would be all over town by night, and the
Dowager would be furious."
"Very well--what shall we do?"
They were standing at the moment before a comfortable frame house with
three children romping on the veranda. The children left off their play
to come to the top of the steps and stare.
"Come on!" Patty urged. "We'll sing the 'Gypsy Trail.'" (This was the
latest song that had swept the school.) "I'll play an accompaniment on
the tambourine, and you can flap your sole. Maybe they'll give us ten
cents. It would be a beautiful lark to earn our car-fare home--I'm
_sure_ it's worth ten cents to hear me sing."
Conny glanced up and down the deserted street. No policeman was in
sight. She grudgingly allowed herself to be drawn up the walk, and the
music began. The children applauded loudly; and the two were just
congratulating themselves on a very credible performance, when the door
opened and a woman appeared--a first cousin to Miss Lord.
"Stop that noise immediately! There's somebody sick inside."
The tone also was reminiscent of Latin. They turned and ran as fast as
Conny's flapping sole would take her. When they had put three good
blocks between themselves and the Latin woman, they dropped down on a
friendly stepping-stone, and leaned against each other's shoulders and
laughed.
A man rounded the corner of the house before them, pushing a mowing
machine.
"Here, you!" he ordered. "Move on."
They got up, meekly, and moved on several blocks further. They were
going in exactly the opposite direction from St. Ursula's school, but
they couldn't seem to hit on anything else to do, so they kept on moving
mechanically. They had arrived in the outskirts of the village by now,
and they presently found themselves face to face with a tall chimney
and a group of low buildings set in a wide enclosure--the water-works
and electric plant.
A light of hope dawned in Patty's eyes.
"I'll tell you! We'll go and ask Mr. Gilroy to take us home in his
automobile."
"Do you know him?" Conny asked dubiously. She had received so many
affronts that she was growing timid.
"Yes! I know him _intimately_. He was under foot every minute during the
Christmas vacation. We had a snow fight one day. Come on! He'll love to
run us out. It will give him an excuse to make up with Jelly."
They passed up a narrow tarred walk toward the brick building labeled
"Office." Four clerks and a typewriter girl in the outer office
interrupted their work to laugh as the two apparitions appeared in the
door. The young man nearest them whirled his chair around in order to
get a better view.
"Hello, girls!" he said with cheerful familiarity. "Where'd you spring
from?"
The typewriter, meanwhile, was making audible comments upon the
discrepancies in Patty's hosiery.
Patty's face flushed darkly under the coffee.
"We have called to see Mr. Gilroy," she said with dignity.
"This is Mr. Gilroy's busy day," the young man grinned. "Wouldn't you
rather talk to me?"
Patty drew herself up haughtily.
"Please tell Mr. Gilroy--_at once_--that we are waiting to speak to
him."
"Certainly! I _beg_ your pardon." The young man sprang to his feet with
an air of elaborate politeness. "Will you kindly give me your cards?"
"I don't happen to have a card with me to-day. Just say that two ladies
wish to speak with him."
"Ah, yes. One moment, please--Won't you be seated?"
He offered his own chair to Patty, and bringing forward another,
presented it to Conny with a Chesterfieldian bow. The clerks tittered
delightedly at this bit of comedy acting, but the Gypsies did not
condescend to think it funny. They accepted the chairs with a frigid,
"Thank you," and sat stiffly upright staring at the wastebasket in their
most distant society manner. While the deferential young man was
conveying the message to the private office of his chief, public comment
advanced from Patty's stockings to Conny's shoes. He returned presently,
and with unruffled politeness invited them please to step this way. He
ushered them in with a bow.
Mr. Gilroy was writing, and it was a second before he glanced up. His
eyes widened with astonishment--the clerk had delivered the message
verbatim. He leaned back in his chair and studied the ladies from head
to foot, then emitted a curt:
"Well?"
There was not a trace of recognition in his glance.
Patty's only intention had been to announce their identity, and invite
him to deliver them at St. Ursula's door, but Patty was incapable of
approaching any matter by the direct route when a labyrinth was also
available. She drew a deep breath, and to Conny's consternation, plunged
into the labyrinth.
"You Mr. Laurence K. Gilroy?" she dropped a curtsy. "I come find-a you."
"So I see," said Mr. Laurence K. Gilroy, dryly. "And now that you've
found me, what do you want?"
"I want tell-a your fortune," Patty glibly dropped into the lingo she
and Conny had practised on the school the night before. "You cross-a my
hand with silver--I tell-a your fortune."
This was no situation of Conny's choosing, but she was always staunchly
game.
"Nice-a fortune," she backed Patty up. "Tall young lady. Ver'
beautiful."
"Well, of all the nerve!"
Mr. Gilroy leaned back in his chair and regarded them severely, but with
a gleam of amusement flickering through.
"Where did you get my name?" he demanded.
Patty waved her hand airily toward the open window and the distant
horizon--as it showed between the coal sheds and the dynamo building.
"Gypsy peoples, dey learn signs," she explained lucidly. "Sky, wind,
clouds--all talk--but you no understand. I get message for you--Mr.
Laurence K. Gilroy--and we come from long-a way off to tell-a your
fortune." With a pathetic little gesture, she indicated their damaged
foot gear. "Ver' tired. We travel far."
Mr. Gilroy put his hand in his pocket and produced two silver half
dollars.
"Here's your money. Now be honest! What sort of a bunco game is this?
And where in thunder did you get my name?"
They pocketed the money, dropped two more curtsies, and evaded
inconvenient questions.
"We tell-a your fortune," said Conny, with business-like directness. She
brought out the pack of cards, plumped herself cross-legged on the
floor, and dealt them out in a wide circle. Patty seized the gentleman's
hand in her two coffee-stained little paws, and turned it palm up for
inspection. He made an embarrassed effort to draw away, but she clung
with the tenacious grip of a monkey.
"I see a lady!" she announced with promptitude.
"Tall young lady--brown eyes, yellow hair, ver' beautiful," Conny echoed
from the floor, as she leaned forward and intently studied the queen of
hearts.
"But she make-a you lot of trouble," Patty added, frowning over a
blister on his hand. "I see li'l' quarrel."
Mr. Gilroy's eyes narrowed. In spite of himself, he commenced to be
interested.
"You like-a her very much," pronounced Conny from below.
"But you never see her any more," chimed in Patty.
"One--two--three--four months, you no see her, no spik with her." She
looked up into his startled eyes. "_But you think about her every day!_"
He made a quick movement of withdrawal, and Patty hastily added a
further detail.
"Dat tall young lady, she ver' unhappy too. She no laugh no more like
she used."
He arrested the movement and waited with a touch of anxious curiosity to
hear what was coming next.
"She feel ver' bad--ver' cross, ver' unhappy. She thinks always 'bout
that li'l' quarrel. Four months she sit and wait--but you never come
back."
Mr. Gilroy rose abruptly and strode to the window.
His unexpected visitors had dropped from the sky at the psychological
moment. For two straight hours that afternoon he had been sitting at his
desk grappling with the problem, which they, in their broken English,
were so ably handling. Should he swallow a great deal of pride, and make
another plea for justice? St. Ursula's vacation was at hand; in a few
days more she would be gone--and very possibly she would never come
back. The world at large was full of men, and Miss Jellings had a taking
way.
Conny continued serenely to study her cards.
"One--More--Chance!" She spoke with the authority of a Grecian sibyl.
"You try again, you win. No try, you lose."
Patty leaned over Conny's shoulder, eager to supply a salutary bit of
advice.
"Dat tall young lady too much--" she hesitated a moment for fitting
expression--"too much head in air. Too _bossy_. You make-a her mind?
Understand?"
Conny, gazing at the round-faced, chubby Jack of Diamonds, had received
a new idea.
"I see 'nother man," she murmured. "Red hair and--and--_fat_. Not too
good-looking but--"
"_Very dangerous!_" interpolated Patty. "You have no time to waste. He
comes soon."
Now, they had fabricated this detail out of nothing in the world but
pure fancy and the Jack of Diamonds, but as it happened, they had
touched an open wound. It was an exact description of a certain rich
young man in the neighboring city, who loaded Miss Jellings with favors,
and whom Mr. Gilroy detested from the bottom of his soul. All that
afternoon, mixed in with his promptings and hesitations and travail of
spirit, had loomed large, the fair, plump features of his fancied rival.
Mr. Gilroy was a common-sense young business man, as free as most from
superstition; but when a man's in love he is open to omens.
He stared fixedly about the familiar office and out at the coal sheds
and dynamo, to make sure that he was still on solid earth. His gaze came
back to his visitors from the sky in absolute, anxious, pleading
bewilderment.
They were studying the cards again in a frowning endeavor to wrest a few
further items from their overtaxed imaginations. Patty felt that she had
already given him fifty cents' worth, and was wondering how to bring the
interview to a graceful end. She realized that they had carried the
farce too impertinently far, ever to be able to announce their identity
and suggest a ride home. The only course now, was to preserve their
incognito, make good their escape, and get back as best they could--at
least they had a dollar to aid in the journey!
She glanced up, mentally framing a peroration.
"I see good-a fortune," she commenced, "if--"
Her glance passed him to the open window, and her heart missed a beat.
Mrs. Trent and Miss Sarah Trent, come to complain about the new electric
lights, were serenely descending from their carriage, not twenty feet
away.
Patty's hand clutched Conny's shoulder in a spasmodic grasp.
"Sallie and the Dowager!" she hissed in her ear. "Follow me!"
With a sweep of her hand, Patty scrambled the cards together and rose.
There would be no chance to escape by the door; the Dowager's voice was
already audible in the outer office.
"Goo' by!" said Patty, springing to the window. "Gypsies call. We must
go."
She scrambled over the sill and dropped eight feet to the ground. Conny
followed. They were both able pupils of Miss Jellings.
Mr. Laurence K. Gilroy, open-mouthed, stood staring at the spot where
they had been. The next instant, he was bowing courteously to the
principals of St. Ursula's, and striving hard to concentrate a dazed
mind upon the short-circuit in the West Wing.
Patty and Conny left the car--and a number of interested passengers--at
the corner before they reached the school. Circumnavigating the wall,
until they were opposite the stables, they approached the house modestly
by the back way. They had the good fortune to encounter no one more
dangerous than the cook (who gave them some gingerbread) and they
ultimately reached their home in Paradise Alley none the worse for the
adventure--and ninety cents to the good.
* * * * *
When the long, light evenings came, St. Ursula's no longer filled in the
interim between dinner and evening study with indoor dancing, but
romped about on the lawn outside. To-night, being Saturday, there was no
evening study to call them in, and everybody was abroad. The school year
was almost over, the long vacation was at hand--the girls were as full
of bubbling spirits as sixty-four young lambs. Games of blindman's-buff,
and pussy-wants-a-corner, and cross-tag were all in progress at once. A
band of singers on the gymnasium steps was drowning out a smaller band
on the porte-cochère; half-a-dozen hoop-rollers were trotting around the
oval, and scattered groups of strollers, meeting in the narrow paths,
were hailing each other with cheerful calls.
Patty and Conny and Priscilla, washed and dressed and chastened, were
wandering arm in arm through the summer twilight, talking--a trifle
soberly--of the long-looked-forward-to future that was now so
oppressively close upon them.
"You know," Patty spoke with a sort of frightened gulp--"in another week
we'll be _grown-up_!"
They stopped and silently looked back toward the gay crowd romping on
the lawn, toward the big brooding house, that through four tempestuous,
hilarious, care-free years had sheltered them so kindly. Grown-upness
seemed a barren state. They longed to stretch out their hands and clutch
the childhood that they had squandered with so little thought.
"Oh, it's horrible!" Conny breathed with sudden fierceness. "_I want to
stay young!_"
In this unsocial mood, they refused an offered game of hare-and-hounds,
and evading the singers on the gymnasium steps--the song was the "Gypsy
Trail"--they sauntered on down the pergola to the lane, sprinkled with
fallen apple blossoms. At the end of the lane, they came suddenly upon
two other solitary strollers, and stopped short with a gasp of
unbelieving wonder.
"It's Jelly!" Conny whispered.
"And Mr. Gilroy," Patty echoed.
"Shall we run?" asked Conny, in a panic.
"No," said Patty, "pretend not to notice him at all."
The three advanced with eyes discreetly bent upon the ground, but Miss
Jellings greeted them gaily as she passed. There was an intangible,
excited, happy thrill about her manner--something _electric_, Patty
said.
"Hello, you bad little Gypsies!"
It was a peculiarly infelicitous salutation, but she was smilingly
unconscious of any slip.
"_Gypsies?_"
Mr. Gilroy repeated the word, and his benumbed faculties began to work.
He stopped and scanned the trio closely. They were clothed in dainty
muslin, three as sweet young girls as one would ever meet. But Patty and
Conny, even in the failing light, were still noticeably brunette--it
takes boiling water to get out coffee stain.
"Oh!"
He drew a deep breath of enlightenment, while many emotions struggled
for supremacy in his face. Conny dropped her gaze embarrassedly to the
ground; Patty threw back her head and faced him. He and she eyed each
other for a silent instant. In that glance, each asked the other not to
tell--and each mutely promised.
The breeze brought the chorus of the "Gypsy Trail"; and as they
sauntered on, Miss Jellings fell softly to humming the words in tune
with the distant singers:
"And the Gypsy blood to the Gypsy blood
Ever the wide world over.
Ever the wide world over, lass,
Ever the trail held true
Over the world and under the world
And back at the last to you.
Follow the Romany patteran--"
The words died away in the shadows.
Conny and Patty and Priscilla stood hand in hand and looked after them.
"The school has lost Jelly!" Patty said, "and I'm afraid that we're to
blame, Con, dear."
"I'm glad of it!" Conny spoke with feeling. "She's much too nice to
spend her whole life telling Irene McCullough to stand up straight and
keep her stomach held in."
"Anyway," Patty added, "he has no right to be angry, because--without
us--he never would have dared."
They kept on across the meadow till they came to the pasture bars, where
they leaned in a row with their heads tipped back, scanning the
darkening sky. Miss Jellings's mood was somehow catching; the little
contretemps had stirred them strangely. They felt the thrill of the
untried future, with Romance waiting around the corner.
"You know," Conny broke silence after a long pause--"I think, after all,
maybe it will be sort of interesting."
"What?" asked Priscilla.
She stretched out her arm in a wide gesture that comprised the night.
"Oh, everything!"
Priscilla nodded understandingly, and presently added with an air of
challenge:
"I've changed my mind. I don't believe I'll go to college."
"Not go to college!" Patty echoed blankly. "Why not?"
"I think--I'll get married instead."
"Oh!" Patty laughed softly. "_I_ am going to do both!"
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 21, "chose" changed to "choose" (endeavor to choose)
Page 35, "Cony" changed to "Conny" (Conny Wilder in dramatics)
Page 36, "Rosaile" changed to "Rosalie" (When Rosalie chanced)
Page 76, "or" changed to "of" (majority of the)
Page 85, "exhanced" changed to "enhanced" (are enhanced by)
Page 86, "skurried" changed to "scurried" (she scurried off)
Page 92, "Sally" changed to "Sallie" ( Miss Sallie affably)
Page 107, "Connie" changed to "Conny" (Conny murmured fervently)
Page 109, "wail" changed to "wait" (Just wait till)
Page 152, "esthetic" changed to "æsthetic" (rather than æsthetic)
Page 206, "same" changed to "some" (There was some)
Page 230, "or" changed to "of" (quiet confines of)
Page 247, "cheery" changed to "cherry" (of the cherry tree)
Page 320, "freindly" changed to "friendly" (the friendly darkness)
Page 329, "airly" changed to "airily" (her hand airily)
Page 330, "sings" changed to "signs" (dey learn signs)
Page 338, "tempestous" changed to "tempestuous" (through four
tempestuous)