“Blue Bonnet,”—Susy, risking detection, had slipped after her, putting a hand into hers,—“Blue Bonnet, you don’t understand!”
“Yes, I do,” Blue Bonnet faced about, meeting squarely the surprise, scorn, indignation, and incredulity, in those fourteen pairs of eyes. “I understand perfectly.”
A moment more and she had closed the door of the recitation-room behind her.
Monsieur was not there yet. From the open window came a sound of muffled laughter, suddenly hushed; the class had reached the yard.
Monsieur was coming now. Blue Bonnet went over to her usual place; it didn’t matter if he were cross, nothing mattered—now that she was really started along the dismal road leading to that dreary land called Coventry,—a land that in the old Texas days she had never dreamed of even sighting.
Then the door opened; but it was not Monsieur who entered. Blue Bonnet caught her breath at sight of Mr. Hunt.
“Good afternoon, Elizabeth,” he said, his quick glance taking in the empty places; “I am sorry to have kept you waiting. I am taking Mademoiselle’s place to-day.”
“Monsieur Hugo is not coming?”
“No—he is not coming.” Mr. Hunt opened the book in his hand. “The lesson is—? Or suppose,” he glanced again at Blue Bonnet’s face, “suppose we do not take up the regular lesson this afternoon—but have a little conversation—in French, of course—instead?”
It was the shortest French recitation the old room had ever seen. And it is to be feared that even then the teacher did most of the “conversing.”