"And you really have to stay? You can't ask your father to take you
away?"
"No." She looked down at Paul's hand beside her on the bench. It
still held a warm tan from summer, and his fingers were very long and
thin and at the same time gave an appearance of great strength. They
were blunt at the tips, the nails square and clean. "I couldn't be
with father while he's traveling about," she said, "and I had to be
somewhere and Eunice suggested this school. Father always seems to do
what Eunice suggests about me...."
Her voice trailed off. Paul saw that she was looking at his hand on the
bench between them and for a second his fingers twitched the way she
had noticed someone's foot would do if you stared at it long enough in
a subway or bus or even in the classroom at school. Then he reached
down and fondled Ariel.
"Ariel is a beautiful dog," she said politely. "Where did you get him?"
"I found him in the street. He had been hit by a car and left there and
his leg was broken. I set it myself and took care of him and now he is
fine, he doesn't even limp, and when I showed him to Dr. Bejart--a
friend of mine--he said he was a very fine dog."
"But that's wonderful!" Flip cried, gazing admiringly at Ariel. "How
did you know about setting a leg?"
Paul looked pleased at her praise. "I intend to be a doctor. A surgeon.
Of course I must go to college and medical school and everything first.
Right now I don't go to school at all. I am trying to study by myself
and my father is helping me but of course I know I must go back to
school sooner or later. I think that it will be later." A shadow swept
over his face and it seemed to Flip as though the day had suddenly
darkened.
She looked up startled and indeed the sun had dropped behind the
mountain. She rose. "I have to go. I didn't realize it was so late. If
I don't get back quickly they'll miss me."
Paul stood up, too. "Do go, then," he said. "If you're caught they
wouldn't let you come back, would they? Will you come back?"
"Do you want me to?" Flip asked.
"Yes. When will you come?"
"I could come next Sunday. But are you sure you want me to? You don't
want to be alone?"
"I can be alone all week," Paul said. "Come Sunday, then, Philippa."
She started away but turned back and said tentatively, "At home I'm
called Flip ..." and waited.
But Paul did not laugh as the girls at school had done. Instead he
said, "Good-bye, Flip."
"Good-bye," she said, and started up the mountain.
6
When she got back to school they had noticed her long absence. Gloria
turned from the group by the phonograph and demanded, "Where've you
been, Pill?"
"Oh--out for a walk," Flip answered vaguely.
"Out for a walk my aunt Fanny," Esmée Bodet said. "You've probably been
mooning down in that chapel again. I think it's sacrilegious."
"Or maybe she was out on a date," Sally suggested. "I bet she was. That
would be just like our Pill, wouldn't it, kids? Were you out on a date,
Pill?"
"I have to wash my hands before dinner," Flip said; and as she started
up the stairs she thought--maybe you'd call it a date at that, Sally!
And she grinned as she turned down the corridor.
By the next Saturday all of the five other new girls in Flip's class
had done Deeds. Two of them had made all the seniors Pie beds. One had
wangled a big box of chocolates into the Common Room with the help of a
cousin who lived in Montreux. Only Flip had done nothing.
Gloria tried to help her. "Maybe you could put salt in Balmy Almy's
tea. I have it! You could fill all the sugar bowls with salt!"