And then the clouds sent her thoughts back to that night on the pond, to the long, weary tramp afterwards through real snow-drifts. Was this, after all, another sort of dare? Were they—all those others, consciously or unconsciously, daring her now to break her promise?
But “living straight and true” could never mean breaking one’s word.
“Miss Elizabeth!” the drawing-master laid a hand on her book; he intended criticizing rather sharply her work, or, rather, lack of work, but the face she turned towards him disarmed him.
“Why, you are not even doing your second best,” he said, with a smile.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Post,” she answered.
“We are not studying cloud effects to-day, you know,” he suggested.
“I was thinking about—something.” Blue Bonnet took up her pencil again; fifteen minutes more and—
Debby was signaling to her, doing it rather openly, too. Blue Bonnet shook her head, impatiently. Why wouldn’t they let her alone?
“That will do for to-day,” she heard Mr. Post say at last.
Five minutes later, she found herself out in the corridor with the other members of the French class. Billy, making elaborate motions to the rest to be very cautious, was leading the way towards the back stairs; his start of surprise when Blue Bonnet took the turn to the little recitation-room beyond, oddly enough, was one of the hardest things about the whole affair for her. It said so plainly that she was the last girl he would have expected to go back on them.