Then quickly turning he sprang into his car and started the engine.
The minister stood in the moonlight looking sadly after the wayward boy whom he had loved for years.
Lynn came swiftly toward her father, scarcely seeing the two strangers. She had a feeling that he needed comforting. But the minister, not noticing her approach, had turned and was hurrying into the house by the side entrance.
“Come on girls, let's have a little excitement,” cried Laurie Shafton gaily, “How about some music? There's a piano in the house I see, let's boom her up!”
He made a sudden dive and swooped an arm intimately about each girl's waist, starting them violently toward the steps, forgetting the lame ankle that was supposed to make him somewhat helpless.
The sudden unexpected action took Marilyn unaware, and before she could get her footing or do anything about it she caught a swift vision of a white face in the passing car. Mark had seen the whole thing! She drew back quickly, indignantly flinging the offending arm from her waist, and hurried after her father; but it was too late to undo the impression that Mark must have had. He had passed by.
Inside the door she stopped short, stamping her white shod foot with quick anger, her face white with fury, her eyes fairly blazing. If Laurie had seen her now he would scarcely have compared her to a saint. To think that on this day of trouble and perplexity this gay insolent stranger should dare to intrude and presume! And before Mark!
But a low spoken word of her mother's reached her from the dining-room, turning aside her anger:
“I hate to ask Lynn to take her into her room. Such a queer girl! It seems like a desecration! Lynn's lovely room!”
“She had no right to put herself upon us!” said the father in troubled tones. “She is as far from our daughter as heaven is from the pit. Who is she, anyway?”