“I wasn’t studying,” she replied with quiet dignity.
Even Tommy was surprised that Meadowcroft, with no inkling of understanding, kept his patience in the face of what must have looked like extreme stubbornness. He merely warned her that it mustn’t happen again. Thereafter he would expect her to be prepared without exception for every lesson. And he would hear her recite this at noon to-morrow.
That night as Meadowcroft sat alone, depressed and disheartened, his sister came flying in with something to communicate which her manner announced to be startling and amusing. He didn’t care to see her at that moment. He felt too sore to strive to detect anything amusing in what she should offer. He was so grieved and discouraged with regard to Betty Pogany that he wished to be left alone, even though he had given up getting any light upon the matter. And yet, it seemed wrong to give up. Quite apart from his particular affection for Betty, Humphrey Meadowcroft felt that he must have been shocked and pained to see such a change in any young girl as had come over her. It was appalling to see any girl growing more unruly and stubborn from day to day and to be powerless to arrest the process.
Perhaps he wouldn’t have felt so much at sea if Betty had been a boy. In that case, however, the situation wouldn’t be the same. Tommy Finnemore, less guilty,—not guilty at all, perchance,—took his punishment blithely and was his own genial, happy, whimsical self the while; but the girl resented receiving less than her desert and haughtily demanded to be left free to choose her own course of action. What could lie at the bottom of it? If only he could get some inkling!
Isabel Phillips appearing at that instant, her brother held the question in abeyance there. But the expression on his face indicated the same thing as if she had come upon him reading, and he had closed the book with his thumb marking the place so that he could open it the moment he should be free.
“Humphrey, what do you think they have got around about Bouncing Bet?” she asked facetiously.
He started. He didn’t like to hear his sister’s gossip in regard to the school children; and he disliked to hear her speak thus of Betty, who wasn’t now, to say truth, any more bouncing than Isabel herself. Yet he looked at her in sharp inquiry. He almost wondered if he had thought aloud and she had heard his exclamation.
“They say that she has been running away from school once a week all winter to visit a beauty specialist for treatment to reduce her flesh!” she declared eagerly.
“Nonsense!” he exclaimed. But he winced secretly.
“No nonsense about it,” she retorted. “It’s plain fact.”