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"I suppose it's the neuralgia again," she suggested with quiet heat. The color stole into Miss Royle's pale cheeks. She coughed. "It is a little worse than usual this afternoon," she admitted. "I thought so," said Jane. "It's always worse on bargain-days." "How dare you!" "You ask me that, do you? you old snake-in-the-grass!" Now Jane grew pallid with anger.
Her directions to Thomas, she half-whispered, or merely signaled them by a wave of her coffee-spoon. Now and then she glanced across the room to the white-and-gold bed. Then she beamed fondly. As for Thomas, he fairly stole from tray to table, from table to tray, his face all concern. Occasionally, if his glance followed Miss Royle's, he smiled a broad, sympathetic smile.
Something in the vehemence, or in the cadence, of Miss Royle's declaration again gave Gwendolyn that sense of triumph. With a sudden curling up of her small nose, she giggled. Miss Royle whirled with a rustle of silk skirts. "Gwendolyn," she said threateningly, "if you're going to act like that, I shall know there's something the matter with you, and I shall certainly call a doctor."
Royle's luncheon-basket coldly furnished forth our evening meal While we sat there, uncomfortably poised on dressing-bags, gnawing legs of fowl and hunches of bread, I thought of you probably dining at the Ritz or the Savoy, with soft lights and music, and lovely food, and probably not half as merry as Boggley and I. I don't know if I really like a tent to live in.
The next moment she heard voices in the direction of the hall first, Thomas's; next, a woman's a strange one this. Disappointed, she turned to face the screening curtains. But she was in no mood to make herself agreeable to visiting friends of Miss Royle's and who else could this be? She decided to remain quietly in seclusion; to emerge for no one except her mother. A door opened.
Gwendolyn whirled. This was the moment, if ever, to make her wish known to assert her will. With a running patter of slippers, she cut off Miss Royle's progress. "That tall building 'way, 'way down on the sky," she panted. "Yes, dear?" with a simper. "Is that where my father is?" The smirk went. Miss Royle stared down. "Er why?" she asked.
As she looked, both pictured faces gradually dimmed. For tears had come at last at the thought of leaving father and mother quiet tears that flowed in erratic little S's between gray eyes and trembling mouth. How could she forsake them? "Gwendolyn," she half-whispered, "s'pose we just pu-play the Johnnie Blake Pretend ... Oh, very well," this last with all of Miss Royle's precise intonation.
She found Jane standing in the center of the room, mouth puckered soberly, reddish eyes winking with disquiet, apprehension in the very set of her heavy shoulders. The sight halted Gwendolyn, and filled her with misgivings. Had Jane just heard? When it came time to prepare for the afternoon motor-ride, Gwendolyn tested the matter yet without repeating Miss Royle's dire statement.
She heard the rustle of silk skirts from the direction of the school-room. Hastily she shook out the embroidered handkerchief and put it against her eyes. A door opened. "There will be no lessons this afternoon, Gwendolyn." It was Miss Royle's voice. Gwendolyn did not speak.
Now and then, for no apparent reason, she sniffled. Gwendolyn's mind was occupied by a terrifying series of pictures that Miss Royle's declaration called up. The central figure of each picture was her father, his safety threatened. Arrived home, she resolved upon still another course of action. She was forced to give up visiting her father at his office.
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