“There were none of the girls in this sweepstake—at least I did not know of any,” he said hurriedly.
“Perhaps not; and if there had been, I should not have been one of them,” she answered coldly. “It would not have been so bad if I had put down the money—I should have felt that at least I had spent it myself, and I had chosen to risk losing it. As it is, I have to go without the things I want, just to fill your pocket—and I don’t like it.”
“I can’t see what you are driving at yet,” he said, and he looked blanker than ever.
“You are teaching Tom to gamble,” she said coldly, “and Tom is not satisfied with risking his own money, but he must needs go into debt, and then come to me to help him out. It would have been bad enough if he had bought more than he could afford to pay for, but it is unthinkable that he should go and stake more money than he has got. A stop must be put to it somehow; I could not go home and look my father in the face, knowing that I was standing by without raising a finger to stop Tom from being ruined.”
“Oh, he is all right,” said Bobby, who looked rather sheepish and ill at ease. “All kids go in for flutters of this sort, and it does them no end of good to singe their wings a bit. He’ll learn caution as he gets older—they all do. Besides, if he had won, you would not have made any stir.”
“Perhaps if Tom had won I should not have known anything about it,” Dorothy said a little bitterly. “It is not merely his own wings that Tom has singed, it is my wings that have been burned. I am not going to sit down under it. You are the cause of the trouble, for it is you who have got up the sweepstake. Blanche said so, and she seemed no end proud of you for doing it, poor dear little kid. But I am not proud of it. I think you are horrid and low down to go corrupting the morals of boys younger than yourself, teaching them to gamble, and then getting your pockets filled with the money you have won from them. I don’t want anything more to do with you, and in future I am going to cut you dead. Good evening!”
Dorothy slid away from Bobby as she spoke, and slipping round behind an advancing couple, she was out of the room in a moment, and fleeing upstairs for all she was worth.
She had made her standpoint clear, but she felt scared at her own audacity in doing it. She could not be sure that it had done any good, and she was downright miserable about Tom.
Of choice, she would have gone to the Head, and laid Tom’s case before her. But such a thing was impossible. She could not submit to being written down sneak and tell-tale, and all the rest of the unpleasant titles that would be indulged in.
Staying upstairs as long as she dared, trying to cool her burning cheeks, Dorothy stood with her face pressed against the cold glass of the landing window. Presently she heard a girl in the hall below asking another where to find Dorothy Sedgewick; and so she came down, and passing the big open doors of the lecture hall where they were dancing, she went into the drawing-room, intending to find a quiet corner, and to stay there for the rest of the evening if she could.