Jason stood very still; his eyes were on the ground. He dared not trust himself to look at the girl beside him. He was only a boy, but Marcia’s harsh tongue had taught him many things. He realized Mahala’s position instantly.
“Thank you,” he said in a voice as lifeless as if he were struggling with a contrary equation. “Of course, I couldn’t come, but it’s good of you to want me.”
Then he passed her and went up to the schoolroom. Taking out his books, he studied with a deeper concentration than he ever before had used. He had a new incentive.
Mahala drew a breath of relief. She had made Jason feel that she had thought of him, that if she could do as she liked, she would ask him to her party. Having cleared her conscience by placing the burden upon it on her parents where she knew it belonged, she turned her attention to the handsomest face and figure on the playground. She studied Junior Moreland carefully. Every year his father saw to it that he wore better and more expensive clothing. Every year made him increasingly handsome in face and figure; and yet, as Mahala studied him intently, she could see faint signs of coarseness creeping into his boyish face. The hollows beneath his eyes were too dark for a schoolboy. He carried himself with too great surety. His air was that of complete sophistication. What was there worth knowing that he did not know? Mahala resented the fact that Junior never approached her without the assumption that every one else should get out of his way. Day after day, as she watched him, the leader of every sport and amusement, she recalled how he often evaded the truth, how he twisted everything to his own advantage, how cruelly ruthless he was concerning their classmates who were in moderate or poor circumstances. He always tried to give the impression that she was his property, that none of the other girls and boys must pass a certain point in their intercourse with her.
There were times when her bright eyes watched him above the top of her Ancient History or Physical Geography and then turned to the background, where, hollow chested, hollow eyed, beaten and defeated, Jason sat rumpling his hair and plunging into his books. And sometimes, when he lifted his eyes and she met his glance, he gave her the feeling that he was a hungry dog that knew he had the strength to capture the bone, but from bitter experience, also knew that it was not worth while to make the fight, because superior power would intervene and take it away from him.
On the day of Mahala’s birthday party, in the midst of the bustle of cleaning, merely from force of habit, that which was clean, of decorating that which was already over-decorated, a dray stopped before the Spellman residence to deliver an expensive piano lamp, the attached card bearing birthday greetings from Martin Moreland, Jr., to Miss Mahala Spellman.
When Mahlon Spellman stepped into his parlour that night, the first thing that attracted his attention was this lamp. He went over and examined it critically; then he turned a face white with anger toward Elizabeth, who stood hesitant in the doorway. He was horrified at the extravagance of such a gift between children.
“Why did you allow this thing to be left here?” he demanded. “Why did you not return it immediately? You know that it is not suitable that a gift of such extravagance should be permitted between mere children. It must go back!”
“Yes, that is what I think,” said Elizabeth.
“Of course, that is what you think,” said Mr. Spellman. “That comes from being a sensible woman. There is nothing else you could think. I strenuously object to having Martin Moreland furnish my house for me. A piano lamp! A piano lamp! Why didn’t he get the piano and let me get the lamp?”