Meanwhile down in that perfectly appointed study a very dazed woman sat rigid and silent. For the very first time in all her life she had encountered a will stronger than her own, had met in the person of an individual only a quarter of her own age a force which had literally and figuratively swept her off her feet and set at naught a resolution which she believed to be indomitable. And worst of all, it had all come to pass because she had lost her self-control. Up to her own outbreak Miss Woodhull was forced to admit that Beverly had been absolutely courteous. It was purely her own act which had precipitated that climax. For fully half an hour she sat as one stunned, then she said, and the words almost hissed from her colorless lips:
“I shall make an example of her! She shall be expelled in disgrace!” though then and there she resolved that none should ever learn of that final scene, and—well—somehow, though she could not explain her conviction, she knew that the outside world would never learn of it through Beverly.
CHAPTER XVII
IN THE WEE SMA’ HOURS
When Beverly swept into her room her thoughts were like a seething cauldron; One instant one impression boiled to the surface, only to be submerged the very next by others surging to the top. She could not think connectedly. Everything seemed jumbled pell mell in her brains. Just one incident took definite shape: She had been shaken like a naughty child and told that she was lying. And all because every instinct of honor and justice forbade her betraying a class-mate, even though she entertained for her little less than contempt. And the effect of Miss Woodhull’s act was very much as though a man had deliberately walked up to Admiral Seldon, accused him of lying and slapped his face.
During the six months which she had spent at Leslie Manor, Beverly Ashby had been no more nor less than just herself: neither better nor worse than the average girl. But for her six months in a boarding-school presided over by a woman who had never known any real girlhood, or girlhood’s exuberance, was an experience far different than for the average girl. Miss Woodhull had grown more and more iconoclastic, and more of a law unto herself with each advancing year. She had become as adamant to all natural impulses, and apparently dead to all affection. Bitterly intolerant of suggestion, advice, or even the natural laws of ethics. With each year she had grown more difficult to live with, and less and less fitted to govern growing girls. But in the beginning the school had established a reputation for the thoroughness of its curriculum and its instruction, as well as for its discipline, and there is little doubt that some of the girls which had come to it during the past thirty years were in need of some discipline.
But Beverly Ashby was not of the type who required discipline of the order Miss Woodhull believed in. Beverly had lived for more than fifteen years under the discipline of love and good judgement, and had developed fairly well in that atmosphere. Her mother had never reproved or punished her in anger. The Admiral, while adoring her, was “boss of the ship,” and both she and Athol had always recognized that fact. His word was law. Moreover, she had always been treated as a reasoning human being invariably trusted; a nice code of honor having been established from the moment the twins could understand the meaning of that fine old word. And that is much earlier in children’s lives than a good many grownups believe.
No wonder an outraged little mortal now sat at her window, her heart beating tattoo, her temples throbbing, her cheeks blazing, her eyes flashing, but her hands clenched and icy cold. There she sat until all sounds in the big house were hushed. She was as rigid as though carved from marble, even though her breath came and went pantingly.