Concerning Belinda Part 14

The recklessness faded, leaving the manliness.

"They've treated us abominably."

"Yes, I know, but she is only seventeen--and clandestine meetings are vulgar and dangerous."

"Her father can't give any reason except that ridiculous family feud."

"A scandal would furnish an excellent reason, and justify him in his att.i.tude toward you."

"But there isn't going to be any scandal."

"Suppose someone else had found you here and told the story broadcast."

He winced.

"But I can't live without seeing her sometimes."

"Then your love is a very small, boyish thing. A man who loved her could wait."

He had come forward now and was looking straight into her accusing face.

"I suppose you are going to tell Miss Ryder, and Katharine will be sent home in disgrace?"

Belinda shook her head. "What I do depends upon you. Perhaps I ought to tell. I owe a duty to Miss Ryder--but then I owe something to Katharine, too. She needs sympathy and sane counsel more than harshness. I think you are honest--though that was a dishonest, underhand trick of yours.

If you will give me your word of honour as a gentleman not to try to see Katharine again while she is here I will say nothing about this."

He hesitated, looked down at the rumpled head upon Belinda's shoulder.

"Shall I do it, Katharine?"

Belinda's face flamed indignantly.

"Are you coward enough to shift the responsibility to her? Aren't you man enough to do what is best for her, no matter what she says?"

The broad shoulders squared themselves.

"I'll promise."

"Does any one know about this escapade?"

"James."

"Can you shut his mouth securely?"

"I will."

"You would better go now."

He moved a step nearer.

"Good-by, dear."

Katharine lifted a tear-stained face.

"You'll not stop caring?" There was a sob in her voice.

"It's only a question of waiting, sweetheart," he said gently; "and we love each other well enough to wait."

He looked beseechingly at the Youngest Teacher, who, being a very human pedagogue, turned her back upon the tragic young things; but a moment later she held out a friendly hand to the departing lover.

"Good-by. I'll trust you."

"Good-by. You may. I do love her. Be good to her," he added brokenly as he disappeared through the door.

Belinda was good to her; and long after the girl was asleep, the Youngest Teacher lay awake, puzzling over problems of right and wrong, of duty and impulse, of justice and mercy.

"They are only children," she said from her pinnacle of two-and-twenty years.

"But children's hurts are hard to bear while they last," her heart answered promptly.

"Perhaps I was all wrong. Probably I ought to have been more severe--but now I've promised"--and Belinda was asleep.

The next morning the incomparable Augustus had disappeared from the horizon. The faithful James, attired in a sporty new suit, new shoes and necktie, and looking astonishingly well and prosperous for a man who reported himself as just back from the gates of death, was once more in his accustomed place.

"James is a good soul, but Augustus had so much more resourcefulness and initiative," said Miss Lucilla regretfully.

"He had," agreed Belinda.

CHAPTER VII

THE Pa.s.sING OF AN AFFINITY

MADAME NOVERI, reader of palms and cards, and dabbler in astrology, was an inst.i.tution in the Ryder school.

The Misses Ryder did not wholly approve of her, but when Miss Lucilla felt qualms of conscience concerning traffic with the black arts, Miss Emmeline reminded her that Madame had been patronized by the Vanderhuysens, and the older sister, whose creed included a belief that the Four Hundred, like the King, can do no wrong, smoothed the wrinkles from her brow and her conscience.

"I suppose it would be foolish not to allow her to come occasionally.

The young ladies like it, and she has promised not to tell them anything tragic," she said reluctantly.

So Madame Noveri came to the school once or twice a year, and she kept her word about the tragedy, but as for sentiment--little did the Misses Ryder know of the romances she evoked from rosy palms and greasy cards.

It was Amelia Bowers who suggested calling in the priestess of the occult to lighten the general gloom following the end of the Christmas holidays and a return to the Ryder fold.

"This is simply too dead slow for anything," groaned the fair Amelia.