“Very little. The Club is about all, and that not more than once or twice a year.”
“The Club! If you’ve been there once this winter, I’m afraid you’ve heard of me. I’m Madge Yarnell, the Madge Yarnell, the girl who tore down the flag at the cotillion.”
“O-oh!” He gave her a long stare. “It was you.”
She winced before the contempt in his tone, and her eyes glistened suddenly. “I’m confessing to you,” she reminded him with a humility that he knew instinctively was wholly unwonted. “I’m not proud of what I did, although some of my friends”—her glance swept over Polly Cresap—“are still foolish enough to tease me about it.”
Compelled by his eyes and the light touch of his hand on her arm, she rose with him, and they sauntered together to the isolation of a pillar on the porch-edge.
The great bay, now purpling with the first hint of sunset, stretched from the foot of the knoll to the hazy hills of the western shore. Little red glints flashed from the surface of the water and seemed to be reflected in the depths of Miss Yarnell’s sombre eyes.
She stood with her hands behind her, her head turned a little from him, but held very proudly. A strong woman, evidently; a passionate one, perhaps; a devoted one, if the right man were found. Fessenden, studying her covertly, realized that for the second time that day he had encountered a girl who stirred in him an interest novel and delightful.
“Tell me about it, Miss Yarnell,” he said at last. “I’ve only heard that you refused to enter the cotillion room so long as the Stars and Stripes decorated the doorway, and that finally you took down the flag with your own hands. I remember the Evening Post had a solemn editorial on the sinister significance of your alleged performance. It couldn’t have been true—I realize that now that I know you. No one could accuse you—you of—that is——”
“Of vulgarity. Thank you for being too kind to say it. But I’m afraid most of it’s true.”
“I can’t believe it.”