“Oh, no, they were not allowed,” admitted Ned Carruthers, and blushed a genuine, honest boyish blush. He had, in fact, had a little difference with the faculty on that very point, he added with a side glance at his sister. We began to understand what the trouble was that Peggy had had with him and sympathy stirred in our hearts.
“I didn’t leave the country college solely because I wished to be at Harvard and near Peggy. I should probably have done that, in time, after Peggy decided that she wished to come to Boston and live in what she calls this lovely old house, but I should not have done it so soon if the faculty had not voted to dispense with my society because I went to a horse-race.”
He looked as if he were really ashamed and were moved by an impulse to be honest about himself—an impulse perhaps engendered by the experiences of the day.
I felt, ridiculously of course, that it was vaguely incongruous that Miss Carruthers should be so stylish and so artistic and yet have a brother lying heavily upon her heart, just as we plain country girls had.
“There were a lot of fellows at that college who got along without being expelled. Give me some credit for honesty at least!” the young man went on. “There was a big fellow there, overgrown but with splendid biceps, a handsome young fellow, who ran off to the races and lost some money. I rather think he was new to the business. He forged a check—on his uncle, I think,—and then funked; got into a regular panic about it and borrowed the money of me. We had just come into our money then, Peggy and I, and I had plenty.
“And if the faculty when they gave me leave to go didn’t hold that very fellow up to me as an example. I lost my temper and gave him away—yes, I did, Peggy, and I know it was a nasty thing to do. I never told you that part of the trouble before, did I, Peggy?”
I pressed Estelle’s foot under the table. Her bosom was heaving and her blue eyes flashing fire. Could that conceited young man think that her feeling was all for him? He was consuming a great quantity of tea-cakes and did not seem to be observing anything beyond his plate.
Of course I had gathered, from the very first, that he meant Dave, and I was inwardly tempestuous, myself, but these were Alice Yorke’s friends, and Miss Peggy Carruthers had been very kind and hospitable to us all. And it was so dreadful to have a scene! I did hope Estelle was not going to make one.
“You needn’t pity him,”—as his sister uttered an exclamation of surprise. “I shan’t, at least not until he pays me my money. He has written to me once or twice as if he really meant to, but I never expect to get it.”
“You will get it! It is our Dave, my own brother whom you are saying those dreadful things about. And they are not true, they’re perfectly false!” Estelle burst forth like a small cyclone. “There is some dreadful mistake about—about his going to the races. He never had the least taste for that sort of thing; he never had any coarse tastes at all!” And my hand on her arm—I gave it a pinch—had no effect whatever.