Part 29 (2/2)

”Why, what are you doing here?” she asked, her voice sharp with amazement. ”I beg your pardon,” she added laughingly, ”but I thought of course it was Eleanor Watson. She came into the house just ahead of me.”

”She hasn't been in here yet,” said the Blunderbuss. She had been standing when Betty first caught sight of her. Now she dropped hastily into a chair by the window. ”I was sure she'd be back soon and I wanted to speak to her for a minute. But I guess I won't wait any longer. I shall be late to dinner.”

”Why, no, you won't,” said Betty quickly. ”It isn't anywhere near dinner-time yet.” She didn't care about talking to the Blunderbuss while she waited for Eleanor, but she had a great curiosity to know what the girl could want with Eleanor. ”And I don't believe Eleanor will have any more idea than I have,” she thought.

But the Blunderbuss rose nervously. ”Well, anyway, I can't wait,” she said. ”I guess it's later than you think. Good-bye.”

Just at that minute, however, somebody came swiftly down the hall. It was Eleanor Watson, carrying a great bunch of pink roses.

”Oh, Betty dear,” she cried, not noticing the Blunderbuss, who had stepped behind a j.a.panese screen, ”see what daddy sent me. Wasn't it nice of him? Why, Miss Harrison, I didn't see you.” Eleanor dropped her roses on a table and came forward, looking in perplexity first at Miss Harrison and then around the room. ”Betty,” she went on quickly, ”have you been hunting for something? I surely didn't leave my bureau drawers open like this.”

Betty's glance followed Eleanor's to the two drawers in the chiffonier and one in the dressing table which were tilted wide open, their contents looked as if some one had stirred them up with a big spoon. She had been too much engrossed by her encounter with Miss Harrison to notice any such details before.

”No, of course I haven't been hunting for anything,” she answered quickly. ”I shouldn't think of doing such a thing when you were away.”

”I shouldn't have minded a bit.” Eleanor turned back to Miss Harrison.

”Did you want to see me,” she asked, ”or did you only come up with Betty?”

The Blunderbuss wet her lips nervously. ”I--I wanted to ask you about something, but it doesn't matter. I'll see you some other time. You'll want to talk to Miss Wales now.”

She had almost reached the door, when, to Eleanor's further astonishment, Betty darted after her and caught her by the sleeve. ”Miss Harrison,” she said, while the Blunderbuss stared at her angrily, ”I'm in no hurry at all. I can wait as well as not, or if you want to see Eleanor alone I will go out. But I think that you owe it to Eleanor and to yourself too to say why you are here.”

The Blunderbuss looked defiantly from Betty's determined face to Eleanor's puzzled one. ”I didn't know it was Miss Watson's room until you came in and asked for her,” she vouchsafed at last.

”You didn't know it was her room?” repeated Betty coldly. ”Why didn't you tell me that long ago? Whose room did you think you were in?”

”I thought--I didn't know whose it was.”

”Then,” said Betty deliberately, ”if you admit that you were in here without knowing who occupied the room you must excuse me if I ask you whether or not you were looking through Eleanor's bureau drawers just before I came in.”

There was a strained silence.

”You can have all the things back,” said the Blunderbuss at last, as coolly as if she were speaking of returning a borrowed umbrella; and out of the pockets of the child's ap.r.o.n which she still wore she pulled a gold chain and a bracelet and held them out to Eleanor. ”I don't want them,” she said when neither of the others spoke. ”I don't know why I took them. It just came over me that while all the others were out there playing it would be a good chance for me to go and look at their pretty things.”

”And to steal the ones you liked best,” added Betty scornfully.

The Blunderbuss gave her a vaguely troubled look. ”I didn't think of it that way. Anyway it's all right now. Haven't I given them right back?”

”Suppose we hadn't come in and found you here,” put in Eleanor.

”Wouldn't you have taken them away?”

”I--I presume so,” said the Blunderbuss.

”So you are the person who has been stealing jewelry from the campus houses all through this year.” Betty's voice grew harder as she remembered the injustice she had so nearly done Georgia and Miss Harrison's self-righteous attack on Eleanor in that dreadful cla.s.s-meeting.

The Blunderbuss accepted the statement without comment. ”They could have had the things back if they'd asked for them,” she said. ”I couldn't very well give them back if they didn't ask.”

”Will you give them back now?” asked Betty, astonishment at the girl's strange behavior gaining on her indignation.

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