"I have not as yet exonerated you from this charge, Miss Harlowe," declared Miss Duncan stiffly, her brief graciousness vanishing like magic. "If the other girl is to blame, then she must suffer for her fault. Until I have seen Miss Ashe I shall say nothing. After that I can not promise."
Grace bowed and left the class room, her feeling toward the unknown plagiarist entirely one of pity. She had vindicated herself at the expense of exposing some one else without intent to do more than assert her own innocence, and she now wondered sadly if there were not some way in which she might persuade Miss Duncan to change her mind.
On her way from Miss Duncan's class room that morning Grace found herself walking directly behind Emma Dean. She was sauntering across the campus, her near-sighted eyes fixed on a small, hurrying figure just ahead of her.
"Hello, Grace," was Emma's affable salutation as she turned at the touch of Grace's hand on her shoulder. "I was watching Miss Taylor. What a disappointment that girl is. The first week or two after her arrival at Wayne Hall I thought her delightful, but she has turned out to be anything but agreeable. She barely nodded to me this morning. I believe she is developing snobbish tendencies, which is a great mistake. Deliver me from snobs! We have very few of them at Overton, thank goodness."
But Grace could not help thinking that somewhere in the college community lived a girl who possessed a fault far greater than that of being a snob.
CHAPTER XII
THE SUMMONS
The prospective dinner at Vinton's at which Ruth Denton and Arline Thayer were to be guests of honor drove the unpleasant incident of the morning from Grace's mind for the time being. She had determined to keep her interview with Miss Duncan a secret from her friends. If it had involved only herself, she might possibly have told Anne of it, but since it concerned some one else, Grace's fine sense of honor forbade her making even Anne her confidant in the matter. She could not help speculating a little concerning the identity of the other girl. She had not the remotest idea as to who she might be. Whoever she was, she could not have realized what a dishonorable thing she had done, was Grace's charitable reflection. She wondered what Mabel would think when Miss Duncan asked her to identify the theme as the one Grace had written during that evening in Holland House.
"I'm going to stop thinking of it for the rest of the day," declared Grace half aloud, as she dressed for dinner late that afternoon. She started guiltily, glancing quickly to where Anne sat mending a tiny tear in her white silk blouse. Anne, who was fully occupied with her mending, made no comment. She was so used to Grace's habit of thinking aloud that she had no idle curiosity regarding her friend's thoughts. Whatever Grace wished her to know she would hear in due season.