Olive was essentially gentle in her disposition and knowing that Donald had always been their friend in all family difficulties, she was sorry to have seemed unkind. “I’ll tell Jean and Frieda,” she replied with more enthusiasm, “and if Miss Winthrop is willing, why of course we will be happy to come. You are staying at ‘The Towers,’ aren’t you, the white house at the end of the woods with a tower at the top of it and queer gabled windows and two absurd dogs on either side the front door?”
The young man nodded. “You have seen the place, haven’t you? We are dreadfully ashamed of those dogs now, but we used to love them as children; I suppose a good many generations of the children in our family have had glorious rides on their backs.” Olive frowned, a wave of color sweeping over her face which even in the glow of the artificial lights Donald was able to see. “I wonder,” she said, “about that tower room. Isn’t it very big, with guns and swords and things around the walls, and books, and a man in armor standing in one corner?”
Donald stared, as Olive’s face went suddenly white again. “I am sorry I made such a silly speech. Of course your tower room isn’t like that. I think I must just have read of some such a room at the top of a house somewhere that looks like yours. Only I want to ask you a few questions.”
At this instant a pair of hands were suddenly clasped over Olive’s eyes and a voice asked:
“Oh, tell me, lady, fair and blind,
Whose hands about thee are entwined?”
The voice there was little difficulty in recognizing, for Jean had come up quietly behind Olive and Donald with Cecil Belknap and with Gerry Ferrows and one of her friends. Jean promptly began a conversation with Donald; Gerry and her friend, after being properly introduced to the others, continued their discussion, so there was nothing for poor Olive to do but to try to talk to Cecil.
Rather more sure of counting on Jean’s interest in his invitation than Olive’s, Donald Harmon had promptly repeated his request to her, so that for five minutes or more they were deep in questions and answers, Jean laughingly reproaching Donald for not having asked her to dance all evening, while he assured her that in vain had he tried to break through the wall of her admirers. When a truce was finally declared Jean smilingly accepted his invitation to tea and then turning stood for a moment with her eyes dancing as she watched Olive’s struggle to keep up a conversation with Cecil Belknap. The subject of the weather had evidently been exhausted, also the beauty of the moon even now peeping over one of the ridges of the Sleepy Hollow hills, and still Olive was struggling bravely on without the least assistance from her superior companion, who merely stared at her without volunteering a single remark.
Jean’s laugh rang out mischievously. “I do ask your pardon, Olive, for having left you to talk to Mr. Belknap so long. Just think,” she turned to look up at the young man with her most demure expression, “I used to think the sphinx a woman, but now I am entirely convinced that he or she is a Harvard student, for surely nothing else could be so equally silent and inscrutable.”
Cecil Belknap’s glasses slid off his nose. Could it be that this small ranch girl, whom he had been trying to be nice to all evening on account of his sister’s affection for her, was actually poking fun at him, a Harvard Senior and heir to half a million dollars? The thing was impossible! Had she not realized that his mere presence near her had added to her social distinction all evening? Could it be that she had also expected him to chatter with her like any ordinary schoolboy? Winifred Graham would have had no such ridiculous ideas and Cecil now hoped it was not too late to reduce Jean to a proper state of humility.