“Oh, no!” exclaimed Merry. “Come right in!”
He sprang forward and greeted Inza warmly with outstretched hand. She never before had looked so stunning and dashing. At least, Frank thought so.
“We thought we’d come round and call a moment before you left, Frank,” she said, in her well-modulated, musical voice. “You go——”
“To-morrow. I was packing my trunk when the fellows strolled in. I’m glad you came, Inza.”
He drew her into the room, and the boys bowed, greeting with enthusiasm the former mascot of the crew. She spoke to them all, but it seemed that even a little more color mounted to her flushed cheeks when Starbright, the handsome giant freshman, bowed low before her.
And keen eyes might have seen that Dick was not quite at ease, though he made a desperate effort to appear thus.
Mr. Burrage shook hands with the boys, having a pleasant word for each one, but the arrival of Inza put an end to their free-and-easy badinage and joking. They gathered about her in an admiring circle, listening to every word she uttered, each feeling in his heart that she was a most bewilderingly handsome and adorable young lady. In her presence, even Carker forgot to be pessimistic and melancholy, and not once did he speak of the “rumble of the approaching earthquake.”
But Starbright hung on her words in a breathless way, and his heart leaped when she turned toward him with one of her dazzling smiles, or spoke to him directly, and he felt that he was being robbed of his just due, if for a little time she gave him no special attention.
Dick Starbright knew that Frank and Inza were fast friends, he knew they were almost sweethearts, he knew Inza would not be there but for Merry; yet since the day he first saw this dark-eyed, black-haired radiant queen of a girl something he could not hold in check had been growing in his breast—growing, growing, growing. He sought to tell himself that it was no more than mere admiration for an unusually handsome young lady, and he sought to believe that he could readily and easily forget her; but she crept into his dreams with her stately grace, her dark, bewildering eyes, her laugh that thrilled the blood, her mouth that seemed made for kisses.
And now, sitting in Merriwell’s room, with Inza near, his blood throbbed in his big, strong body with all the full flood of healthy, robust youth.