Gwendolyn said nothing.
CHAPTER IV
It was a morning abounding in unexpected good fortune. For one thing, Miss Royle was indisposed—to an extent that was fully convincing—and was lying down, brows swathed by a towel, in her own room; for another, the bursting of a hot-water pipe on the same floor as the nursery required the prompt attention of a man in a greasy cap and Johnnie Blake overalls, who, as he hammered and soldered and coupled lengths of piping with his wrench, discussed various grown-up topics in a loud voice with Jane, thus levying on her attention. Miss Royle's temporary incapacity set aside the program of study usual to each forenoon; and Jane's suddenly aroused interest in plumbing made the canceling of that day's riding-lesson seem advisable. It was Thomas who telephoned the postponement. And Gwendolyn found herself granted some little time to herself.
But she was not playing any of the games she loved—the absorbing pretend-games with which she occupied herself on just such rare occasions. Her own pleasure, her own disappointment, too,—these were entirely put aside in a concern touching weightier matters. Slippers upheld by a hassock, and slender pink-frocked figure bent across the edge of the school-room table, she had each elbow firmly planted on a page of the wide-open, dictionary.
At all times the volume was beguiling—this in spite of the fact that the square of black-board always carried along its top, in glaring chalk, the irritating reminder: Use Your Dictionary! There was diversion in turning the leaves at random (blissfully ignoring the while any white list that might be inscribed down the whole of the board) to chance upon big, strange words.
But the word she was now poring over was a small one. "B-double-e," she spelled; "Bee: a so-cial hon-ey-gath-er-ing in-sect."
She pondered the definition with wrinkled forehead and worried eye. "Social"—the word seemed vaguely linked with that other word, "Society", which she had so fortunately overheard. But what of the remainder of that visitor's never-to-be-forgotten declaration of scorn? For the definition had absolutely nothing to say about any bonnet.
She was shoving the pages forward with an impatient damp thumb in her search for Bonnet, when Thomas entered, slipping in around the edge of the hall door on soft foot—with a covert peek nursery-ward that was designed to lend significance to his coming. His countenance, which on occasion could be so rigorously sober, was fairly askew with a smile.
Gwendolyn stood up straight on the hassock to look at him. And at first glance divined that something—probably in the nature of an edible—might be expected. For the breast-pocket of his liveried coat bulged promisingly.