But Gyp stood rooted.
"I'm sorry you feel bad, Miss Gray. Will you take my handkerchief? It's clean," and Gyp, from the pocket of her middy blouse, proudly produced a folded square of linen.
"You wouldn't believe that just that could open the flood-gates of a broken heart," she exclaimed later to Jerry and Pat Everett, feeling very important over her astonishing revelation.
"Who'd ever dream that Miss Gray could squeeze out the littlest tear," laughed Pat, at which Gyp shook her head rebukingly.
"Teachers are human and have hearts, Pat Everett, even if they are teachers. And romance comes to them, too. Miss Gray is very pretty if you look at her real close and she's quiet because her bosom carries a broken heart."
Sympathetic Jerry thought Gyp's description very wonderful. Pat was less moved.
"What did she tell you, Gyp?"
Gyp hesitated, in a maddening way. "Well, I suppose it was giving her the handkerchief made her break down and I don't believe she thought I'd come straight out here and tell you girls. And I'm only telling you because I think maybe we can help her. After she'd taken the handkerchief and wiped her nose she took hold of my hand and pressed it hard and told me she hoped I'd never know what loneliness was. And then I asked her if she didn't have anyone and she said no—not a soul in the whole wide world cared whether she lived or died. Isn't that dreadful? And she said she didn't have a home anywhere, just lived in a horrid old boarding house. Well, she was beginning to act more cheerful and I was afraid she was recovering enough to tell me to go on with the scanning, so I got up my nerve and I asked her point-blank if she'd ever had a lover——"
"Gyp Westley——" screamed Pat.
"Well, there wasn't any use beating 'round the bush and I knew we'd want to know and I read once that men were the cause of most heartaches, so I asked her——"