Ethel Blue nodded.
"I hoped that before long she would leave Rosemont. Don't you see, Ethel Blue? I said it out of the fullness of my heart because I hoped that before long she would marry me and go away."
Ethel gasped again.
"I was riding such a high horse that I hardly knew what I said, but I can see that when that was repeated to her with 'thought' instead of 'hoped' it looked as if I was mighty sure she was going to have me, and I hadn't even asked her. Yes, any girl would be indignant, wouldn't she?"
Edward scanned Ethel's face, hoping to find some comfort there, but there was none. Ethel's discomfiture and bewilderment had passed and she was putting an unusually acute mind on the situation. She understood perfectly that it looked to Miss Gertrude as if Dr. Watkins had made so sure that she returned his affection that he had gone about talking of it to strangers even before he had told her of his own love.
"I don't wonder that she felt humiliated," was Ethel's verdict.
The program on the stage was going on swiftly. Helen had made the historical introduction, telling the circumstances that led to the affair of April 19th. Tom had recited "Paul Revere's Ride."
It was while the whole Club was singing some quaint Revolutionary songs and winding up with "Yankee Doodle" that Dr. Watkins made his appeal to Ethel Blue.
"She won't listen to a word from me," he said. "She won't let me speak to her. Do you think you could find a chance to tell her how it was? It was bad enough but it wasn't as bad as she thinks. Will you tell her I'd like to apologize before I go to Oklahoma?"
"Oklahoma!"