Weary of scrutinizing the older woman, Olive’s eyes next traveled idly to the top of Miss Winthrop’s desk, resting there for an eager moment, while in her interest she forgot everything else. For the first time in her life this young girl, who had seen nothing of the World of art, had her attention arrested by one of the world’s great masterpieces.
On Miss Winthrop’s desk there stood a cast of an heroic figure of a woman with broad, beautiful shoulders and wonderful flowing draperies. The figure was without head or arms and yet was so inspiring that, without realizing it, Olive gave a sigh of delight.
Straightway Miss Winthrop glanced up. “You like my cast?” she asked quickly. “Do you know that it is a copy of the statue of ‘The Winged Victory,’ ‘The Nike’? The real statue now stands at the top of the stairs in the Louvre in Paris and there you will probably see it some day. But I like to keep the figure here as a kind of inspiration to me and to my girls. For to me ‘The Victory’ means so much more than the statue of a woman. It stands, I think, as the emblem of the superwoman, what all we women must hope to be some day. See the beauty and dignity of her, as though she had turned her back on all sin and injustice and was moving forward into a new world of light. I like to believe that the splendid lost arms of the Nike carried the world’s children in them.”
Of course Miss Winthrop realized that she was talking above the head of her new pupil, but she wished an opportunity to study the girl’s face. Now she saw by its sudden glow and softening that she had caught at least a measure of her meaning.
“Girls, girls, girls.” Sometimes Miss Winthrop felt that the world held nothing else and that she knew all the varieties, and yet one could never be too sure, for here before her was a new type unlike all the others and for some reason at this moment she attracted her strongly.
To Miss Winthrop alone at Primrose Hall Ruth Drew had thought it wise to confide as much as they knew of Olive’s extraordinary history, pledging her to secrecy. Now to herself Miss Winthrop said: “It is utterly ridiculous to believe this child has Indian blood, for there is absolutely nothing in her appearance to indicate it. I believe that her history is far more curious than her friends suppose.”
But to Olive, of course, she said nothing of this, for after her first speech her manner appeared to change entirely. Sitting very erect in her chair, she turned upon her pupil “You may go,” she said coldly, “for I understand that by your action this morning you did not deliberately intend to break one of my rules. But kindly be more careful in the future, for I am not accustomed to overlooking disobedience, whatever its cause.”
With a sigh of relief Olive straightway fled into the hall, wondering if she could ever like this Miss Winthrop, who could be so stern one moment and so interesting the next. For her own part Olive felt that she much preferred their former chaperon, Ruth Drew, for if Ruth were less handsome and perhaps not so cultivated, she was at least more human. If only they were all back at the Rainbow Ranch with Ruth to scold and pet them for their misdoings all in the same breath.
CHAPTER III
“GERRY”
The three ranch girls had their set of apartments toward the front of the house on the second floor at Primrose Hall, so in order for Olive to reach her room it was necessary that she should pass along a long corridor into which various other apartments opened. She was not interested in anything but the one thought of finding Frieda and Jean, and yet, hurrying by an open door, she was obliged to overhear a conversation between two girls who were talking in rather loud tones.