Concerning Sally Part 46

That "kid" settled it, if there was anything needed to settle what may have been ordained from his birth. At any rate, it was ordained that he should not overcome the inclination to that particular sin of his father without a struggle, and if there was one special thing which Charlie was not fitted to do it was to struggle in such a cause. He flushed.

"Only to look on," he pleaded. "It was just to look on that I wanted to go. I didn't mean to play, of course."

"No, of course not. They never do," Ned retorted cynically. Then he considered briefly, looking at Charlie the while with a certain disgust. Having given him advice which was certainly good, he had no further responsibility in the matter. "All right," he said. "If you're bound to go, I can get you by the n.i.g.g.e.r at the door, although he'd probably let you in anyway. You're a very promising subject."

So it happened that Patty waited in vain for Charlie. For a day she thought only that he must have been delayed--he was--and that, perhaps, he was staying in Cambridge to finish something in connection with his studies. She did not get so far as to try to imagine what it was, but she wondered and felt some resentment against the college authorities for keeping such a good boy as Charlie. On the second day she began to wonder if he could have gone to Mrs. Stump's to see his mother. She gave that question mature consideration and decided that he had. On the third day she was anxious about him and would have liked to go to Mrs. Ladue or to Sally and find out, but she did not like to do that. And on the morning of the next day Sally saved her the trouble by coming to ask about him.

Patty was too much frightened to remember her grievance against Sally.

"Why, Sally," she said in a voice that trembled and with her hand on her heart, which had seemed to stop its beating for a moment, "I thought he was with you."

Sally shook her head. "We thought he must be here."

"He hasn't been here," wailed poor Patty. "What can be keeping him?

Oh, do you suppose anything has happened to him?"

Sally's lip curled almost imperceptibly and the look in her eyes was hard.

"I don't know, Patty, any more than you do."

"But I don't know anything," Patty cried. Sally gave a little laugh in spite of herself. "What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do, Sally?"

Sally thought for an instant, and then she turned to Patty. "I will take the noon train up."

"Oh, Sally!" It was a cry of relief. "Couldn't you telegraph first?

And couldn't you ask Doctor Beatty to go, instead, or Doctor Sanderson?"

"I could ask Doctor Beatty to go, but I don't intend to," she said finally, "and Fox is not here. His hospital isn't ready yet, you know.

They couldn't get him any more easily than I can. And as to telegraphing, I don't think that would help."

"Well," said Patty doubtfully, "I don't--do you think you ought to go alone?"

Sally turned and looked at her. "Why not?"

Before the gray eyes Patty's eyes fell. "I--I don't know, exactly. But it hardly seems quite--quite proper for a girl to go alone to--to a college room."

Sally chuckled. "I must risk it," she said. "I think I can. And if Charlie is in any trouble I'll do my best to get him out of it."

"Oh, Sally!" It was not a cry of relief.

Sally paid no attention to that cry of Patty's. "I must go back to get ready," she said. "I haven't any too much time."

But Sally did not take the noon train up. Just as she was leaving Mrs.

Stump's, she met Charlie coming in. He looked rather seedy and quite forlorn.

CHAPTER XI

When Charlie went back, he was feeling rather elated, for he had two hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket. That was all the cash Patty could raise without making an appeal to d.i.c.k Torrington or making some other arrangement which would have betrayed her, and that would not have done. It would not have done at all. Sally might have heard of it, and Patty, to tell the truth, was afraid of Sally. Sally was so--so decided, you know, and so downright, and she could be so hard about anything that concerned Charlie. Sally was not fair to Charlie--the dear boy! What if he was a little extravagant? All young men must have their fling. So Patty, with but the vaguest ideas of what the fling was,--she could think only of fireworks and yelling, although three hundred dollars will buy a great deal of fireworks and yelling is cheap,--Patty, I say, feeling very low in pocket and in spirits, bade Charlie an affectionate farewell and returned to Miss Miller's. She spent the afternoon in casting up her accounts and in biting the end of her pencil; occupations from which she derived but little satisfaction. She could not seem to make the accounts come out right and the end of a pencil, even the best, becomes a little cloying to the taste in time.

Charlie's parting injunction had been really unnecessary. "Don't tell Sally, will you, Patty?" he had said in a voice from which he tried in vain to keep the note of exultation. There was little danger of that.

Patty was as anxious as Charlie was to keep all knowledge of the transaction from Sally. And Patty sighed and cast up her accounts all over again. There was no escape from it. She must look the matter in the face. The absence of that two hundred and fifty would make a great difference to her; it would leave her absolutely without ready money for more than a month, or--or, perhaps,--and she stared out of the window with unseeing eyes--she could manage to borrow--or ask Miss Miller to trust her--or somebody--But that would not make up half and everybody would know about it; and she sighed again and put down the remains of the pencil with its chewed end and put the paper into her waste-basket. She had given it up. She would trust to luck. She never was any good at arithmetic anyway.

What specious arguments Charlie had used to persuade her I do not know. It does not matter and she probably did not give them much attention. Charlie wanted the money. That was the point with her as it was the point with him. What were arguments and explanations? Mere words. But she noted that his watch was gone. Patty, herself, had given it to him only the year before. She could not help asking about that, in a somewhat hesitating and apologetic way.

Charlie set her doubts at rest at once. "Oh, that?" he said carelessly. "It needed cleaning and I left it." He gave the same answer to Sally when she asked about it.

"Huh!" was Sally's only answer, as she turned away.

Charlie had not said anything in reply, although that monosyllable of Sally's, which expressed much, had made him angry enough to say almost anything, if only he knew what to say. He didn't; and the very fact that he didn't made him angrier than ever. He stammered and stuttered and finished by clearing his throat, at which performance Sally smiled heartlessly.

Charlie had been badly shaken and had not had time to recover. But neither Sally nor Patty had an idea of what Charlie had been through.

It was just as well that they had not; just as well for Charlie's comfort and for Patty's. Sally had more imagination than Patty had and she had had more experience. She could picture to herself any number of sc.r.a.pes that Charlie might have got himself into and they did not consist solely of fireworks and yelling. They were much nearer the truth than that vague image of Patty's, and if Sally did not hit upon the exact situation it is to be remembered that she did not know about the money which Charlie had succeeded in extracting from Patty.

But Sally's imaginings were bad enough. They were sufficient to account for her heavy heart, although they were not necessary to account for it. Sally usually had a heavy heart now, which was a great pity and not necessary either. What had come over her? It troubled her mother to see her so depressed. She may have attributed it to the wrong cause or she may not. Mothers are very apt to be right about such matters. Her anxious eyes followed Sally about. Finally she could not refrain from speaking.

"Sally, dear," she asked, "what is the matter?"

Sally smiled a pitiful little smile. "Why, I don't know, mother. Is anything the matter?"

"Something must be. A girl like you doesn't get so low-spirited for nothing. It has been going on for nearly a year now. What is it, Sally? Can't you tell me, dear?"

"I wish I could, mother. I wish I knew. If I knew, I would tell you. I don't. I only know that nothing seems to be worth while and that I can't care about anything. A pity, isn't it?" And Sally smiled again.

"Sally, don't! If you smile like that again you will make me cry."

"I won't make you cry, mother. It is no trouble for me to keep from smiling."

"Are you--aren't you well, Sally?"

Sally stretched her arms above her head. She was getting to be rather a magnificent woman. "I can't raise a single symptom," she said. "I'm absolutely well, I think. You might get Doctor Beatty to prod me and see if he can find anything wrong."

"I would rather have Fox."

Sally flushed very faintly. "Not Fox, mother. I didn't mean it, really. I'm sure there is nothing the matter with my health. I could give you a catalogue: appet.i.te good--fairly good, I sleep well, I--I can't think of anything else."

"Mind?" her mother asked, smiling.

"A blank," said Sally promptly, with a hint of her old brightness. "My mind is an absolute blank. So there you are where you started."

"Is it your teaching, dear? Are you too tired?"

"Do I look as if I ought to be tired?" Sally returned scornfully. She did not look so, certainly. She was taller than her mother and long-limbed and lean, and she looked fit to run races or climb trees or to do anything else that required suppleness and quickness and to do it exceedingly well. "I ought to be ashamed of myself and I am, but I feel as if I could murder those children and do it cheerfully; without a single pang. It makes me wonder whether I am fitted to teach, after all."

"Oh, Sally!"

Sally made no reply, but sat down on the bed and gazed out of the window at nothing in particular. To be sure, she could not have seen anything worth while: only the side of the next house, not fifty feet away, and the window of a bedroom. She could have seen into the room, if she had been at all curious, and have seen the chambermaid moving about there.