INZA BEGINS TO UNDERSTAND.
"How did the game come out?" asked Miss Abigail Gale, Inza's aunt, as the two girls returned to Paula's home, which was a handsome house in an aristocratic portion of the Back Bay.
Miss Gale was knitting. For all of her luxurious surroundings, she was plainly dressed, and she was practicing economy by knitting herself some winter stockings. Reputed to be comfortably rich, Miss Gale was "close-handed" and thrifty.
"Yale won, of course!" cried Inza, who had not recovered from her enthusiasm. "Oh, Aunt Abby, you should have seen it!"
"No, no!" exclaimed the spinster, shaking her head.
"You would have gone crazy over it!"
"It's brutal. I have no sympathy with such brutal games. I didn't want to see it, and I stayed away."
"But it was such a splendid spectacle. Twenty-two young gladiators, clad in the armor of the football field, flinging themselves upon each other, struggling like Trojans, swaying, straining, striving, going down all together, getting up, and——
"Land!" cried Miss Abigail, holding up both hands. "It must have been awful! It makes my blood run cold! Don't tell me any more!"
"At first Harvard rushed Yale down the field. Yale could not hold them back. It was easy for Harvard. Jack got the ball—Jack Benjamin. He went through Yale's line. The coast was cleared. He made a touchdown. He ran like a deer. How his legs did fly!"
"Good!" cried Miss Abigail, getting excited and dropping her knitting—"good for Jack!"
"But a Yale man was after him, and the Yale man could run. The crowd was wild with excitement. Jack tore up the earth. The Yale man tore up the earth——"
"He couldn't catch Jack!" exclaimed the spinster. "It wasn't any use for him to try."
"He did catch him—jumped at him—caught his ankles—pulled him down!"
"You don't say! He'd ought to be walloped!"
"Then the others came up, and they all piled on Jack and Frank."
"Frank? Frank who?"
"Why, Frank Merriwell, of course."
"Was he the one that caught Jack?"
"Yes."
"I might have known it. No use for Jack to try to run away from Frank. He couldn't do that. But I thought Frank wasn't going to play?"
"He broke his promise to me—he did play."
"Do tell! I'm surprised!"
"So was I. He stopped Jack, but Harvard scored in the first half, and Yale didn't get a thing. Then came the other half. Yale went at Harvard with new life. Frank seemed to give it to them. He rushed the ball down the field. Harvard couldn't hold him."
"Of course not."
"He got the ball close down to Harvard's line. Then he kicked a goal."
"Hurrah!" cried Miss Abigail, with an astonishing burst of enthusiasm. "Go on, Inza."
"The ball was put into play again. Again Yale got it and rushed it down through Harvard's line. Harvard made a furious struggle to hold it back. Frank got it at last—he broke through—they couldn't stop him. Then—then, with three Harvard men on his back, he carried the ball over the line for a touchdown, kicked a goal, and won the game."
Miss Abigail was palpitating with excitement.
"Goodness me!" she gurgled. "And Frank did all that? I didn't see him do it, either! Goodness me! It must have been grand—it must have been! What a fool I was to stay at home!"
Inza laughed, and then became sober, suddenly.
"Yale won," she said, "but I'll never speak to him again."
"Him? Who?"
"Frank."
"Won't speak to Frank Merriwell?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"He broke his promise to me. Harvard would have won if he hadn't. Look at Paula! She is heartbroken! It was mean of Frank—just as mean as it could be!"
"It was mean," said Paula, "and Frank Merriwell ought to be ashamed. I think he must be an awfully cheap fellow to do anything like that."
Miss Abigail's face grew hard as iron.
"Now, you hold right on, Paula Benjamin!" she said, severely. "Don't you talk about him! Your mother and me was schoolmates, but I won't stay in this house to hear Frank Merriwell traduced! I know him, and he's a fine young man."
"He may be," reluctantly admitted Paula, seeing Miss Gale was thoroughly aroused; "but it seems to me that a fine young man should keep a pledge."
"You don't know his circumstances. There must have been a good reason why he broke his pledge."
"I presume he was called on to play when Mr. Marline injured his ankle."
Inza looked at Paula quickly.
"Mr. Marline?" she said. "I think Frank spoke of him. Who is he?"
"He was to play full-back for Yale, but he sprained his ankle, and so he could not play."
"Do you know him?"
"I have been introduced to him. Jack knows him very well. We met him when we were South two years ago."
"How do you know he sprained his ankle?"
"Jack heard of it last night."
"Then word must have been sent from New Haven. Did it come through a traitor or a spy?"
Paula flushed, and then said:
"Through neither. Mr. Marline expected to see us after the game, and he sent word that he could not very well, as he had sprained his ankle and might not be able to come on. I saw him with the Yale boys, though. He was on crutches."
"I begin to understand Frank's position," thought Inza. "He was forced into the game. Well, I have said I'd never speak to him again, and I shall keep my word. I don't care if it breaks my heart! I know he thinks more of his old college than he does of me."
Jack Benjamin came home bruised in body and crushed in spirit. Paula met him at the door, and drew him into the sitting-room, where Inza and Miss Gale were.
"It's too bad, Jack!" cried his sister, her sympathetic heart wrung by the look of pain on his face. "I think it is just awfully mean that Harvard didn't win!"
"Harvard would have won if it hadn't been for that fellow, Frank Merriwell!" growled Benjamin. "I said he'd hoodoo us, and I was right. We can't down Yale at any game he is in. It's no use to try. Why, we out-classed Yale all around to-day, and still he won the game for them. That's what I call infernal luck!"
Inza repressed her elation, but something like a grim smile came to Miss Abigail's hard face.
"If Marline hadn't hurt his ankle, we'd been all right," declared Jack, as he sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, looking down at the floor. "Rob is a good man, they say, but he could not have done the things Merriwell did. Why, hang it!" he suddenly cried, getting on his feet, sinking his hands deep in his pockets, and stamping around the room, "that fellow actually carried Woodbury, Stanton and Glim on his back for more than fifteen yards! They couldn't pull or crush him down. I wouldn't believe it possible if I hadn't seen it. He's a terror!"
Inza's eyes sparkled.
Paula followed Jack and took his arm.
"I hate him!" she cried. "I saw him pull you down, the big, strong ruffian!"
"Yes," nodded Jack, "and a pretty tackle it was. He didn't pile upon me like a wooden man, but his hands went down to my ankles and flipped me in a second. If he'd bungled the least bit, I'd made a touchdown. Oh, he is a terror!"
"But I hate him!" persisted Paula. "I was so sure you would make a touchdown. What right had he to grasp you that way and throw you so hard?"
"That's the game, sister mine. Any Yale man would have done it—if they could."
"I don't care! Why was he playing?"
"That's right!" cried Jack, turning to Inza. "I thought he wasn't in the game this season? I thought he gave you his promise not to play?"
Inza flushed with shame and embarrassment.
"He did," she confessed.
Jack whistled.
"And broke his promise—I see! It can't be that he thinks much of his word."
It seemed for an instant that Inza would defend him, but she did not. For the first time Frank had broken a promise to her, and she felt it keenly. She turned away.
Miss Gale looked grim, but remained silent. She knew herself, and realized she might say too much, if she spoke at all.
It was an hour or so before Jack could cool down, so stirred up was he by the result of the game. Finally, he went upstairs to take a bath.
Before dinner there was a ring at the bell, and a servant brought in a card, which she gave to Jack, who was enjoying his first smoke of weeks, now that the game was over.
"Hello!" he cried. "Rob Marline! I didn't expect him."
"Rob Marline!" exclaimed Paula, in no little confusion. "Gracious! I must be looking like a fright! Come up to my room with me, Inza, and see that I am presentable."
So the girls ran up to Paula's room, and Jack directed that Marline be brought directly to the smoking-room.
"I want to look my best when Mr. Marline comes," said Paula, when they were in her boudoir. "I am sure my hair looks bad, and I must be a perfect fright."
Inza laughed.
"It seems to me you are very particular about Mr. Marline."
"I am," confessed Paula, busying herself before the mirror. "You know, he is Jack's particular friend."
"Oh, he's Jack's particular friend!"
The manner in which Inza said that brought a warm flush to Paula's cheeks, and she endeavored to hide her confusion, but in vain.
"I've discovered your secret, dear!" cried Inza, with her arm about her friend's waist. "Now I know why you take such an interest in Robert Marline."
"Nonsense! I like him, because—because——"
"Just because you do."
"No; because he is Jack's friend."
"Now, don't try to deceive me, Paula!" cried Inza, holding up one finger. "You can't do it. You would like Rob Marline just as much if your brother was not in it."
"Oh, it's no use to talk to you," fluttered Paula. "You are one of the girls who will have your own way."
"No, not always. I did not have my way to-day. Frank Merriwell played football. But, Paula, I think I am beginning to understand more fully just why you were so anxious Mr. Merriwell should not play on the Yale eleven. He was Mr. Marline's natural rival for the position of full-back. If Frank Merriwell played, Rob Marline could not. I'm sure I am right. You did not tell me the entire truth, but I have found it out."
Paula was more than ever confused, but she could not deny Inza's charge.
"If I told you that," she confessed, with sudden frankness, "I feared you would not try to induce Mr. Merriwell not to play. Now, don't be angry with me, Inza! I know it was Rob's—I mean Mr. Marline's ambition to play full-back on the Yale team, and I wanted him to do so. That's all. Perhaps I ought to have told you in the first place. Do forgive me, dear!"
It was not in Inza's heart to be unforgiving, and so the girls hugged each other, kissed and assisted each other in getting ready to go down and meet the visitor.
They found Jack and Marline in the library. The Yale lad arose with difficulty. His crutches were lying on the floor beside the chair on which he sat.
Paula blushed prettily as she shook hands with Marline, and then she presented Inza.
Thirty minutes later, while they were chatting, there was another ring at the bell, and the servant brought a card to Inza.
"Gentleman wishes to see you, miss."
Inza looked at the card, turned pale, and then, her voice quivering a bit, said:
"Tell Mr. Merriwell I will not see him!"