"Yes, I suppose that is the best thing for me to do; but oh, Hope! you
don't know, you can't think how I dread it."
"Yes, I can _think_;" and Hope laughed a little.
"She'll be so angry she'll say horrid things to me."
"Yes, you may count on that."
"_When_ would you tell her?"
"I'd go now and tell her this very minute, it ought to be done at once."
"Oh, dear! well, I'll take your advice, and you'll wait for me here,
won't you?"
"Yes, I'll wait for you here and study up my history lesson."
"All right; and wish me courage and success." Then, with a little nod
and a rueful smile, Kate Van der Berg went on her mission to Dorothea;
for it had finally, after much consultation between the three friends,
been thought best for Kate to go straight to Dorothea and appeal to her.
Dorothea was at the desk in her room writing a note as Kate entered,--a
note she hastily turned over blank side up as she saw her visitor. There
was a rather flurried look on her face, as Kate said, "Am I interrupting
you?" though she answered readily enough, "Oh, no; I thought it was one
of the servants when you knocked, that's all." Then, not very cordially,
"Won't you sit down?"
This was not a very promising beginning, and Kate's heart began to fail
her. At this point, however, she caught sight of a photograph. It was
the photograph of Raymond Armitage, and her courage returned.
Dorothea had seen her glance of recognition, and remarked coolly: "Isn't
it like him? He's very handsome, I think, don't you?"
"I--I don't know," stammered Kate; then, throwing all hesitation to the
winds, she began to speak, and this she did at the start in the kindest,
gentlest way in the world, telling of what she had seen and heard, as
she had told Hope and Myra, and winding up with: "I felt that I ought to
speak to you--to tell you what you might not know--how much all this
would affect Miss Marr and injure yourself; that if--if she heard--if
she knew--she might--might write to your parents, and ask them--to--to
take you home."
"Oh, I see--expel me, that's what you mean. The old cat, she won't do
any such thing! I never saw anything like the way you all go on over
that woman. I like her well enough. I was tremendously taken with her
and her tailor gowns when I first came, but I didn't bow down before her
as the rest of you did, and I have never believed she was of so much
consequence as she was set up to be; and as for her throwing away a lot
of money by sending a girl off for being a little independent and having
a little fun in her own way, she's too smart to do any such thing. My
gracious! I should think I had tried to set the house on fire by the
fuss you make! And what have I done? Just had a little sociable time
with an acquaintance without asking leave of her High-and-Mightiness."
Kate had hard work to control herself. At the phrase "old cat," her very
soul had risen up in revolt. To speak in such terms of Miss Marr!--Miss
Marr, who was so fine and sweet, so considerate and sympathetic, who was
indeed like an older girl friend to them all. And then, "What have I
done? Just had a little sociable time with an acquaintance, without
asking leave of her High-and-Mightiness." Kate lifted up her chin
suddenly, as she recalled these words, and as coolly as she could,
said,--
"I suppose you know that if you _had_ asked for leave to write notes to
Raymond Armitage, and to receive them from him, and to make appointments
with him to go down town, and all that, it would have done no
good,--that, of course, Miss Marr, or any head of a school, would not
have given you permission."
"No, of course they wouldn't; but that's only one of the stiff little
bars that boarding-schools set up."
"And you wouldn't want to do such things half as much if there were no
bars against them."
"But what harm is there in 'such things,' as you call them? Suppose my
cousin Jimmy was at boarding-school, and took a notion to write a note
to a girl, and to meet her down town and drink ice-cream soda with her,
would any teacher think he had done such a dreadful thing,--a thing for
which he deserved to be expelled?"
"They'd think he had done wrong in going against the laws of the school,
but it _wouldn't_ do him the harm that it would a girl, because a girl
is supposed to be a little differently situated from a boy. If she has
been brought up like a lady, she isn't expected to be planning meetings
with young men on the sly. She is supposed to have a little dignity; and
as everybody knows that no boy would think of proposing such silly
out-of-the-way things to a girl unless he had been encouraged by her to
dare them, so the girl who is found to have gone on in such silly ways
is talked about as bold and unladylike, and that is an injury that may
leave a black and blue spot on her forever; and you must see, if you
will stop to think about it a minute, that such a girl would injure the
school she happened to be in,--would leave a black and blue spot on
that."
Kate had tried to be very forbearing at the start; but as she was
confronted by Dorothea's density, as she saw how vain and foolish, not
to say ignorant, were her estimates, her patience gave way, and she
spoke the whole of her mind then and there, without reserve and without
softening her words. It is needless to say that Dorothea was furious to
be called by implication bold and unladylike, and a possible injury to
the school. Out of this fury she burst forth,--
"I never, never in all my life heard of such impudence! _You_ to talk of
being brought up like a lady! You are the most conceited, meddling,
_un_ladylike girl I ever met! What business is it of yours, anyway? Who
set you up to manage this school? You think you can manage everybody,
and that you know more about society and propriety than anybody else.
You're nothing but a Dutch girl, anyway; and as for being expelled from
this school, I'll expel myself if this kind of interference is to be
allowed. I'm about tired, anyhow, of such a peeking, prying,
puss-puss-in-the-corner place. Miss Marr is making you into a little lot
of primmy old maids just as fast as she can; and I for one--"
But Kate did not wait to hear any more of this outburst. She did not
dare, in fact, to trust herself to reply. Hope, who was sitting curled
up in the library waiting, as she had promised, heard the quick, flying
footsteps, as they came along, and said to herself, "She's had a horrid
time, I know." But _how_ horrid she had not imagined until poor Kate
poured forth the story. It was a very honestly told story,--not a word
of her own part in it omitted in the whole detail. But as she thus
honestly, and with just her own peculiar lift of the head and emphatic
way, repeated all she had said, Hope's lips began to twitch, and at last
she began to laugh.
"How mean of you!" cried Kate. Then she joined in the laugh, as she
realized how little adapted her words had been to soften Dorothea, and
how fully adapted to rousing her resentment and rebellion.
"But I began beautifully, Hope. I was as mild and persuasive as
possible; but when she called Miss Marr 'an old cat,' I _couldn't_ keep
on being mild and persuasive. How could I?"
"I think it must have been hard work, and I don't wonder you said just
what you did; and perhaps, after all, the plain truth, though it makes
her so angry now, will have the most effect in the end."
"Yes, in the end; but--but, Hope, what I've been afraid of is that
she'll do something right away,--something reckless and daring, just to
show she isn't afraid of anything and doesn't care."
"Oh, I didn't think of that; but I don't believe she will. She'll
remember what you said about Miss Marr's writing to her parents, and
that will stop her."
"I don't know," responded Kate, doubtfully. "She looked to me as if she
would brave anything, she was so angry."
For a day or two the three--Hope and Myra and Kate--were on the _qui
vive_, expecting some catastrophe; but as at the close of the second day
everything seemed to go on as usual, and Dorothea, with the exception of
holding aloof from them, was the same as ever, they relaxed a little of
their apprehension.
Once or twice in these days they had noticed that Bessie Armitage had
regarded Dorothea with a queer, quizzical sort of look,--"Just as if she
knew something was or had been going on," Myra declared.
Hope laughed at this declaration. What could Bessie know? She was not a
boarding-pupil, only "an outsider," as they called the girls who were
the day pupils; and the outsiders never knew what was going on in the
house unless some one of the boarding-girls told them, and there was
certainly no one to tell Bessie about this affair.
"Perhaps Raymond may have told his sister," suggested Myra.
"Raymond Armitage!" exclaimed Kate. "Not he; there are brothers and
brothers. Raymond Armitage is not one of the brothers who are
confidential with their sisters. It would be much more his way to tell a
boy friend,--to tell him and brag about it to him. That's just the kind
of boy Raymond Armitage is, in my opinion. I like Bessie, but I never
liked that brother of hers. I never like boys who have such awfully
flattering ways with girls. Raymond Armitage is always paying
compliments to girls, always agreeing with everything they say, or
pretending to. He--he's--I don't know just how to put it--but he's too
conscious all the time. Now, there's Peter Van Loon and Victor Graham
and that nice Jimmy Dering, they're polite enough for anybody; but they
treat me as if I was a human being like themselves, and agree with me or
disagree with me as they do with each other. They're honest, and that's
the kind I like and trust, and I don't trust the other kind. I always
feel as if these smiling, smirking, constantly agreeing kind were making
fun of me."
"So do I," "And so do I," exclaimed Hope and Myra, in a breath.