“Did you take these?” she asked.
“Yes,” Boyd answered. “I’ll overhaul the camera, and we’ll go picture-hunting some Saturday morning.” He was returning the views to his note-book, and, as he spoke, some papers fell from it to the ground.
“One would think you were taking notes for a book—” Blue Bonnet began, then she stopped. They were notes, and they were all in Alec’s handwriting.
Boyd had slipped down from his horse, and was gathering the slips of paper up hurriedly; he looked confused, Blue Bonnet thought.
The little incident came back to her the next morning, as Kitty drew her to a standstill before the bulletin board in the assembly-room. “Three more names,” Kitty commented; “they’re coming in fast. Why, there’s Boyd Trent’s. I didn’t know he meant to try; it not being the regulation thing, apparently, for outsiders to do.”
Blue Bonnet let the little dig pass; she was bending to read the title of Boyd’s paper—“The After Stories of Some Sargent Winners.” Suddenly, Blue Bonnet saw again the little pile of papers lying in the dusty road, and Boyd’s face as he bent to pick them up.
“What’s the matter?” Kitty asked; “Are you beginning to repent? It’s not too late even yet! Billy’s still on the tenterhooks,—I think Mr. Hunt might temper judgment with mercy a little more quickly,—and if there’s time for Billy Slade to get up a paper, there’s time enough for you. Nothing happening, you’ll be reading Katherine Clark’s name there before many days.”
“Come on!” Blue Bonnet said. “No, I’m not beginning to repent; I’ve always understood that it was a very uncomfortable process to go through with.” Her thoughts were in a whirl. Had Boyd really taken Alec’s—She couldn’t think that.
She thought about it all during opening exercises; also, all through the Latin recitation afterwards, with the result that she failed twice on questions that she knew quite as well as the girl next her who answered them so glibly.
“So like the dear old days!” Kitty murmured provokingly; and Blue Bonnet decided to put the matter out of her thoughts until after school. Just what she intended to do then, was not clear to her; she could hardly go to Boyd and accuse him of—that.