“Sh! My child, don’t say a word; that road leads to scandal. We don’t know yet how Overton was saved. I suppose, if this goes on, I’ll have to speak to Diane or to Faunce.”
“It’s not his fault, papa,” Fanny protested firmly, as she rose. “He loves her!”
The dean shook his head.
“Youth,” he remarked, “is optimistic. There’s Ferdie Farrar trying to bat that ball right into the seminary window, and I’ve warned him twice!” he added, springing up and making for the door, his eyes intent on the plunging figures on the distant campus.
Fanny heard him go out with his usual impetuosity; then she sat down weakly, poured herself another cup of lukewarm tea, and drank it. She was very glad that she had been so completely mistress of herself. She felt sure that her father had no suspicions. She was aware that Mrs. Price had, but she could depend on her mother.
Mrs. Price had her failings, but she was loyal to her little girl, as she still called her daughter. If she knew that Fanny had suffered when Faunce married Diane, she would not betray her knowledge, even by sympathizing with her. There was relief in that; it would be all the harder to drag her poor little secret out and dissect it, when it was a plain duty to let it die of inanition.
But it was like turning the knife in the wound to see that Diane could not get on with Faunce. Of course, they would patch this quarrel up, unless it was about some vital matter; but they could not go on as they had begun. At least Fanny could not believe it possible.
She had, besides, an intuitive knowledge of Diane’s frame of mind. Diane had loved Overton, and had been drawn to Faunce because of his association with Overton. He had won her consent to the marriage, but Fanny did not believe that he had ever completely won her heart. And now Overton had come back.
Fanny started as the thought took shape. Overton’s inexplicable return, the questions that it had raised about Faunce, the gossip and the scandal were synchronous with Diane’s flight. Was this the meaning of it?
Fanny rose slowly from the tea-table and went to the window. She felt a little giddy with the rush of troubled thoughts, and she blinked as the sunshine flashed full into her eyes. The window faced west, and the day was nearly done. Against a yellow mist she saw the striped and barred figures of the ball-players on the distant field. Their lithe forms etched against the orange tint of the horizon reminded her of the Greek figures on one of Judge Herford’s glazed porcelains.