“Thank you, sweetheart. I feared you could not deny yourself that remark about keeping my idea, as I might never get another. But this one is an idea about a dog. Let’s find a puppy to give Gertrude for a soothing companion this vacation. I love puppies.”
“The question is: does Gertrude also love puppies? Or is it a joke?”
“Let’s get a dog and surprise her with it April Fool’s morning. He will be such a friendly little fellow and so faithful that her conscience will sting her——”
“I must acknowledge that you are a humane, tender-hearted individual. To plot a stinging conscience——”
“Oh, hush, Berta! Do be nice and agreeable. I’m awfully tired this week, and I really need some distraction. The corridors stretch out empty and silent, and breakfast doesn’t taste good at all, and—and I want to do something for Sara.”
“Oh, all right!” Berta spied the glint of an excitable tear and shrugged the weight of common sense from her shoulders. “I’m with you.”
Three days passed—three days of blue sky and fluffy clouds and air that sent Bea dancing from end to end of the long stone wall while Berta stumped conceitedly along the path in her new rubber boots. Gertrude wondered aloud why two presumably intelligent young women insisted upon spending every morning in foolish journeys over muddy country roads. Noting an unaccustomed accent of peevishness in the energetic voice, Berta began to worry a bit over the likelihood that such petulance was due to impending sickness. Bea jeered at this, though with covert side glances to detect any signs of fever. In her secret soul, where she hid the notions which she dimly felt looked best in the dark, she reflected that an attack of some mild disease might be a valuable form of retribution, and also afford the invalid leisure to repent of her sins. Still she did not quite like to mention this thought aloud, as it seemed too unkindly vengeful with regard to any one so obviously miserable as Gertrude.
One day on charitable plans intent the two conspirators dragged Gertrude out across the brown fields to have fun building a bonfire, as they had done the previous spring. But somehow the expedition was not much of a success—possibly because the wood was too damp to burn inspiritingly. On that other occasion Sara had been with them, and had kept them laughing. She could say the funniest things without stirring a muscle of her small solemn face. That stump speech of hers given from a genuine stump had sent them actually reeling home. This year—alas!—while returning to college rather silently, they saw Sara plodding toward them with an air of being out for sober exercise, not pleasure. The moment she spied them, she deliberately retraced her steps, and vanished through a hole in the hedge. This incident set Gertrude to chattering so excitedly about nothing in particular that the others knew she cared even more than they had fancied.
On the evening of the last day of March, Bea and Berta came rushing into the dining-room twenty minutes late for dinner. When they both declared that they did not want any soup—their favorite kind, too—Gertrude sighed impatiently over countermanding her order to the maid. It seemed as if she were not getting rested one bit this vacation, though she did nothing but read novels all day long. She felt sometimes as if she were hurrying every minute to escape from herself and her own thoughts. Everything irritated her in the strangest way. In all her busy healthful life she had never been nervous before. It was not hard work that had worn upon her. The doctor told them when they were freshmen that no girl ever broke down from work unless worry was added. Gertrude knew perfectly well what torturing little worry was gnawing away in her mind. She kept telling herself that her speech to Sara had been true—it was so—Sara had broken her engagement—and she could not, could not, could not humble herself to apologize. In fact, Sara was the one who ought to offer apologies. And all this time wilful Gertrude refused to acknowledge even to herself that she was juggling with her conscience in the desperate determination to hold herself free from blame in her own esteem. She simply could not beg anybody’s pardon, and she was not going to do it, because—well, because she had not been to blame—so there!
On this particular evening, after five solid minutes of silence on the part of her exasperating roommates, she raised her heavy eyes, and let them rest expressionlessly on the two wind-freshened faces, till Bea’s roses blossomed to her hair.