Cornelia interrupted; her shaking finger still pointed to the desk: “I don’t care to hear this. What I want to know is how you dared—how you dared to——”
“Cornelia, you must not ask your mother how she ‘dares’ to do anything. We know where you lunched, and you might have guessed that you couldn’t do such a thing without our hearing of it. A lady who saw you came straight here to know if it was by my consent, and I’m very grateful to her for it. In conjunction with the drawing I’d just seen, which surprised me greatly, to say the least, what this lady told me was a shock to me, as it is to your father, too, Cornelia. To think that you’d deceive us like this—to say nothing of the indiscretion of a schoolmaster who is supposed to be in charge of——”
“Mr. Bromley?” Cornelia cried. “Do you mean Mr. Bromley?”
“I certainly do. I think his conduct——”
“I asked him,” Cornelia interrupted fiercely. “I saw him from the window and I ran down and walked ahead of him, and almost got run over by a taxicab on purpose, and he saved me, and I asked him to let me have lunch with him and told him I was going there anyway. Mamma, don’t you dare——” Her voice broke; she gulped and choked; her trembling was but too visible now. “Mamma, if you ever dare say anything against Mr. Bromley——”
“I agree that we may quite as well leave him out of it,” her mother said, sharply. “Your own excitement is all the evidence I need that your father and I have been wise in the decision we’ve just come to.”
Something ominous in this arrested Cornelia’s anger; and she stared at her mother incredulously. “ ‘Decision’?” she repeated, slowly. “What ‘decision’?”
“We’re going to put you into Miss Remy’s school on the Hudson,” Mrs. Cromwell said. “Your father’s already engaged a drawing-room for us on the afternoon train to-morrow. I’m going with you, and you’ll begin the new term there on Monday.”
Cornelia still stared. “No——” she said. “No, Mamma, no——”
Mrs. Cromwell was touched, seeing the terror that gathered in her child’s eyes. “You’ll love it there after a little while, dear. You may think it’s pleasant to stay here, but after you’ve been there a week or so, it’s such a lovely place that you——”