Part 8 (2/2)
”What cla.s.s are you?” asked Miss b.u.t.ts, when they were established there. ”My card doesn't say.”
”Doesn't it?” said Mary idly, watching the kaleidoscope of gay colors moving dizzily about beneath her. ”Then suppose you guess.”
Miss b.u.t.ts considered ponderously. ”You aren't a freshman,” she said finally, ”nor a soph.o.m.ore.”
”How are you so sure of that?” asked Mary. ”I was just going to say----”
”You're a junior,” announced Miss b.u.t.ts, calmly disregarding the interruption.
Mary shook her head.
”Senior, then.”
Mary shook her head again.
”I didn't think you looked old enough for that,” said Miss b.u.t.ts. ”Then I was mistaken and you're a soph.o.m.ore.”
”No,” said Mary firmly.
Miss b.u.t.ts stared. ”Freshman?”
”No,” said Mary, who considered the befooling of Miss b.u.t.ts beneath her.
”I graduated last year.”
”Oh, I don't believe that: I believe you're a freshman after all,”
declared Miss b.u.t.ts. ”You started to say you were a few minutes ago.”
”No, I graduated last June,” repeated Mary, a trifle sharply. ”Here's Miss Hildreth coming for my next dance. You can ask her. I'm her guest this evening. Didn't I graduate last year, Babbie?”
Babbie stared uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then she remembered Mary's plan.
”Why, you naughty little freshman!” she cried reprovingly. ”Have you been telling her that?”
Miss b.u.t.ts looked dazedly from the amused and reproachful Babbie to Mary, whose expression was properly cowed and repentant.
”Are you really a freshman?” she asked. ”Why, I don't believe you are.
I--I don't know what to believe!”
Mary smiled at her radiantly. ”Never mind,” she said, ”you'll know the truth some day. Next fall at about this time I'll invite you to dinner, and then you'll know all about me. Now good-bye.”
Babbie regarded this speech as merely Mary's convenient little way of getting rid of the stupid Miss b.u.t.ts, who for her part promptly forgot all about it. But Mary remembered, and she declared that the sight of Miss b.u.t.ts's face on the occasion of that dinner-party, with all its rather remarkable accessories, was worth many evenings of boredom at ”girl dances.”
It was not until Friday, that Mary's ”little friends” caught her red-handed, in an escapade that explained everything from the size of her trunk to the puzzling insouciance of her manner. They all, and particularly Roberta, had begun to feel a little hurt as the days went by and Mary indulged in many mysterious absences and made unconvincing excuses for refusing invitations that, as Katherine Kittredge said, were enough to turn the head of a crown-princess. Friday, the day that had been reserved for the expedition to Smuggler's Notch, dawned crisp and clear, and some girls who had had dinner at Mrs. n.o.ble's farm the night before brought back glowing reports of the venison her brother had sent her from Maine, and the roaring log fire that she built for them in the fireplace of her new dining-room. So Roberta and Madeline hurried over before chapel to ask Mary to reconsider. But she was firm in her refusal. She had waked with a headache. Besides, she had letters to write and calls to make on her faculty friends and the people she knew in town.
The emba.s.sy returned, disconsolate, and reported its failure.
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