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Page 27
He had carried her lunch basket when they went to school together, he
had patiently worked the sums on her slate with his big clumsy fingers
when she cried over the mysteries of subtraction. Later, when shy and
overgrown, and too bashful to speak his admiration, he had followed her
around at picnics and parties with a dog-like devotion that touched her.
He had sent her valentines and Christmas cards, and at the last High
School commencement when the graduating exercises marked the parting of
their ways, he had presented her with a photograph album bound in
celluloid, with a bunch of atrociously gaudy pansies and forget-me-nots
painted thereon.
In matching stories with Elise, the album and his awkwardness and his
plodding embarrassed speech somehow slipped into the background, and it
was his devotion and his chivalry she enlarged upon. Elise, impressed by
her hints and allusions, believed in the idealized Jimmy as thoroughly
as A.O. intended she should.
For several days A.O. had been in a quandary, for her mother's last
letter had announced a danger which had never entered her thoughts as
being imminent. "Jimmy Woods will be in Washington soon. He is going up
with his uncle, who has some business at the patent office. I have given
him a note to Madam Chartley, granting him my permission to call on you.
He is in an agony of apprehension over the trip to Warwick Hall. He is
so afraid of meeting strange girls. But I tell him it will be good for
him. It is really amusing to see how interested everybody in town is
over Jimmy's going. Do be kind to the poor fellow for the sake of your
old childish friendship, no matter if he does seem a bit countrified and
odd. He is a dear good boy, and it would never do to let him feel
slighted or unwelcome."
When A.O. read that, much as she liked Jimmy Woods, she wished that the
ground would open and swallow him before he could get to Washington, or
else that it had opened and swallowed her before she drew such a picture
of him for Elise to admire. There were only two ways out of the dilemma
that she could see: confession or a persistent refusal to let her see
him. She must not even be allowed to hang over the banister and watch
him pass through the hall, as she had proposed doing.
The more she persisted in her refusal the more determined Elise was to
see him. A.O. imagined she could feel herself growing thin and pale from
so much lying awake of nights to invent some excuse to circumvent her.
If she only knew what day Jimmy was to be in Washington she could
arrange to meet him there. So she could plan a trip to the dentist with
Miss Gilmer, the trained nurse, as chaperon. She wouldn't have minded
introducing him to Elise if she had never painted him to her in such
glowing colours as her hero. She wished she hadn't told her it was Jimmy
who was coming. She could have called him by his middle name,
Gordon--Mr. Gordon, and passed him off as some ordinary acquaintance in
whom Elise could have no possible interest.
It was a relief when Elise turned her attention to Mary's affairs, and
when she saw that her turn was coming again, she set her teeth together
grimly, determined to make no answer.
Presently, to her surprise, Elise relapsed into silence, and stood
looking out of the window, tapping on the kettle with her spoon in a
preoccupied way. Then she laughed suddenly as if she saw something
funny, and being questioned, refused to give the reason.
"I just thought of something," she said, laughing again. "Something too
funny for words. I'll have to go now," she added, as if the cause of her
mysterious mirth was in some way responsible for her departure.
"Thanks mightily for the candy, Mary. It's the best ever. You're going
to be overflowed with orders, I'm sure. Well, farewell friends and
fellow citizens, I'll see you later."
"What do you suppose it was that made her laugh so," asked A.O.,
suspiciously. "There's always some mischief brewing when she acts that
way. I don't dare leave her by herself a minute for fear she'll plot
something against me. I'll have to be going, too, Mary."
Left to herself, Mary began washing the utensils she had used. By the
time she had removed every trace of her candy-making, the confections
set out on the window sill in the wintry air were firm and hard, all
ready to be wrapped in the squares of paraffine paper and packed in the
boxes waiting for them. She whistled softly as she drew in the plates,
but stopped with a start when she realized that it was Elise's song she
was echoing:
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