For a day or two the three—Hope and Myra and Kate—were on the qui vive, expecting some catastrophe; but as at the close of the second day everything seemed to go on as usual, and Dorothea, with the exception of holding aloof from them, was the same as ever, they relaxed a little of their apprehension.
Once or twice in these days they had noticed that Bessie Armitage had regarded Dorothea with a queer, quizzical sort of look,—"Just as if she knew something was or had been going on," Myra declared.
Hope laughed at this declaration. What could Bessie know? She was not a boarding-pupil, only "an outsider," as they called the girls who were the day pupils; and the outsiders never knew what was going on in the house unless some one of the boarding-girls told them, and there was certainly no one to tell Bessie about this affair.
"Perhaps Raymond may have told his sister," suggested Myra.
"Raymond Armitage!" exclaimed Kate. "Not he; there are brothers and brothers. Raymond Armitage is not one of the brothers who are confidential with their sisters. It would be much more his way to tell a boy friend,—to tell him and brag about it to him. That's just the kind of boy Raymond Armitage is, in my opinion. I like Bessie, but I never liked that brother of hers. I never like boys who have such awfully flattering ways with girls. Raymond Armitage is always paying compliments to girls, always agreeing with everything they say, or pretending to. He—he's—I don't know just how to put it—but he's too conscious all the time. Now, there's Peter Van Loon and Victor Graham and that nice Jimmy Dering, they're polite enough for anybody; but they treat me as if I was a human being like themselves, and agree with me or disagree with me as they do with each other. They're honest, and that's the kind I like and trust, and I don't trust the other kind. I always feel as if these smiling, smirking, constantly agreeing kind were making fun of me."
"So do I," "And so do I," exclaimed Hope and Myra, in a breath.
CHAPTER XIX.
The next day was Saturday, and directly after a very early twelve-o'clock luncheon the girls were all going to the Park to skate. Miss Marr had a cold, and was not able to accompany them, as she usually did on these outings. She sent, in her stead, two of the under teachers,—Miss Stephens and Miss Thompson.
"And if we can't have Miss Marr, Stevey and Tommy are not bad," Kate Van der Berg declared, rather irreverently, as she ran up to her room to make herself ready. Several girls were following in her wake; amongst them was Dorothea, who suddenly retorted to Kate's words,—