“Thank you, Veronica. Your shadow dance was also a joy to see. You are a very clever young person. I wish I could dance like that.”
“Why can’t you stay, Veronica?” lamented Jerry. “I’d love to have you meet the Weston High boys. They are nice fellows and good dancers.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Veronica made a smiling gesture of protest. “I love to dance. When I was——” she stopped with her usual strange abruptness. “I must go,” she asserted decisively. “My—Miss Archer will wonder what has kept me so long.”
“But we came down here as a special committee of two to persuade you to stay,” pleaded Marjorie.
“Thank you ever so much. It is dear in you to take so much trouble for a poor servant girl.” Veronica’s gray eyes twinkled as she referred to her lowly estate.
“I wish you wouldn’t say that, Ronny,” protested Marjorie, unconsciously using Jerry’s new name for the pretty girl.
“Where did you hear that name? I mean the name ‘Ronny?’” Veronica’s startled question held a note of sharpness. “I never mentioned it to you. I am sure of that.” A decided pucker of displeasure showed itself between her dark brows.
“Why—that—why—Jerry mentioned it,” stammered Marjorie, somewhat taken aback by Veronica’s brusque manner of speaking. “She thought of it herself, I suppose.” Flushing, she turned to Jerry for corroboration. The stout girl’s round eyes were fixed shrewdly on Veronica.
“I take all the blame and the credit for it,” was Jerry’s prompt assertion. “It’s a cunning nickname and easier said than Veronica. If you’d rather we’d not call you Ronny, then we won’t. Of course, you never mentioned it to me. I just made it up. It suits you, though. I’ll bet we’re not the first persons to call you by it, either,” she added, hazarding a shrewd guess.
A tide of pink flooded Veronica’s white skin. Her forehead smoothed itself magically. With a short, embarrassed laugh, she said briefly: “I don’t mind if you girls call me Ronny.” She made no attempt, however, to affirm or deny Jerry’s guess. “Now I mustn’t stay another moment, or some of your guests may wander downstairs and find me here.” So saying, she began to move determinedly toward the doorway that opened into the hall, Jerry and Marjorie following. Pausing at the front door only long enough to offer them her hand in parting, Veronica made a quick exit from the house and sped down the drive. Accompanying her as far as the veranda, Marjorie and Jerry watched her in silence until she had been swallowed up in the black shadows of the night.