“I’m sore enough over all this,” said he, “but I’d rather take you home. I’m not a perfect bounder, and if you like I’ll go into the house and talk to your mother.”
“I wish you would,” said Betty, dreading it, however.
But when the roadster drew up before the Lee home, Jack courteously accompanied Betty to the front door, but said that he had changed his mind about coming in. “I may do it some other time,” said he.
Betty, just inside the hall door, turned to see Jack hurrying out to his car, starting it and rolling off with never a look backwards. She sighed, shut the door and went to ask her mother if Mrs. Huxley had telephoned. She had not. “It’s all over, Mother, my talk with Jack. Did you see him bring me home in his roadster? It’s the last time, of course, but I can’t tell you about what we said just now.” To Betty’s own surprise her voice shook and at her mother’s sympathetic look the tears came.
“I think I’ve got to go off and cry,” she said in a squeaky tone and as she fled toward her room she heard her mother say that she would keep Doris away if she came home too soon. One lovely thing about Mother was that she wasn’t curious! She could wait until her children felt like telling her things.
Betty, however, had some repentant thoughts. It would have been better, perhaps, to have braved the opposition, or criticism, or disagreeable circumstances at the party, as her father had suggested, to telephone to him at home, rather than to have risked coming home so late and alone. A city was no place for that. But if she wrote an apology to her hostess it might “mess things up worse than ever,” she concluded. Hereafter she would try to “keep her head,” but also never to get caught in such a situation.
CHAPTER XVIII
A HAPPY DISCOVERY
Early in May the concert given by the combined musical organizations was given. That was the next great interest for Betty and her musical friends. A close study of good music had been made under the direction of the leader, and the result was an entertainment of which Lyon High was not ashamed.
Betty, pretty and excited, in her light dress, gracefully manipulated a bow in the orchestra. Chet was also prominent, tooting away at the proper time. Lucia sang with the combined glee clubs. Ted Dorrance and his mother sat near enough for Ted to salute Betty with hand and head. The entire Lee family attended; and the countess, with Mr. Murchison and some other friends, sat in the middle of the balcony. The orchestra was one organization where favoritism was seldom shown. You played well or you didn’t and were ranked accordingly. You came to practice or were dropped. You behaved or you were sent to “D. T.,” the common expression for “detention” or staying after school in a sort of study hall.
But it was good fun and you met other boys and girls who liked music, some of them with fine gifts in the line. And dear me, how wide Betty’s acquaintance had grown to be in these three years at Lyon High! Hikes and picnics with the G. A. A. or the class or a few friends; a party here, a meeting there; the Dramatic Club, the Latin Club, the Girl Reserves and Y. W. affairs. Betty needed a private directory, she declared, not to forget “who was who and where she had met them.” Some were more interesting than others, and among those who were interesting she counted the “Pirate of Penzance,” Marcia Waite’s brother, from whom she occasionally heard through Marcia, or Lucia, who was in Marcia’s sorority. Once she had a very friendly letter from him and at Christmas time he had sent her a card. He always addressed her as “Titania” in remembrance of their first meeting on Hallowe’en. It was his face that she had seen in the mirror. Wouldn’t it be funny if, after all—but what nonsense!