we may be doing her the most awful injustice,” Gay said, “but Lorna and I have been wondering if there is a Bill. We wonder if Henrietta is n’t just pretending there is a Billy Vane – and all.”
Freeman seemed more bored than interested.
“Why should she pretend a thing like that – a crazy thing like that?” he asked indifferently.
“Don’t you know how girls love to wear rings on their engagement fingers?” asked Gay. “It’s that sort of thing, Lorna and I think. It gives her a romantic hue. She thinks it makes us feel she is fortunate. Is n’t it killing!”
Freeman looked at the ants scurrying across the walk at his feet.
“I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “You girls may have seen a lot I never saw. You would n’t think of such a thing unless you had some reason. How about all the presents she says he sends her?”
“We think she buys them herself,” Gay said. Freeman turned his hand and looked at his long, well-kept nails.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asked.
“Indeed, yes!”
“Do you remember the silver-backed hand mirror Billy Vane sent her? With her monogram engraved on it?”
“Yes.”
“All right! Johnnie Alberson ordered that for her from Chicago. I saw it when it came and I saw her when she came into the store to pay the bill.”
“Why, Freeman Todder! And you just this minute said you didn’t know anything about it!”
“About there being no Billy Vane,” he explained. “There might be a Billy Vane who did not do his duty in the way of presents. He might be a close-fist. Your Henrietta might be afraid you would think he was a cheap skate if presents did not come along regularly.”
Gay considered this.
“Yes,” she said, after a moment, “that might be, but we suspected there was no Billy before we thought of the presents at all. Of course, the presents she has to buy explain why she never has any money – why she is always borrowing – but that is not all. You won’t say a word, will you, Freeman?”
“No. It don’t interest me at all,” he said. Miss Redding, rosy-cheeked, came to the door then, and tinkled a small supper-bell. Gay, with an exclamation, jumped up and went to find Lem and Lorna and the promised flowers, and Freeman Todder picked up his hat and cane. He hung the hat on the rack in the hall and stood his cane in the umbrella jar and then climbed the stairs. As he reached the top Henrietta Bates’s door opened and she came out. They met just outside her door and she slipped something into his hand.
“There’s twenty dollars,” she said in a whisper. “It is all I could get. And I can’t borrow any more. They are suspicious now.”
“But, my God, Et,” whispered Freeman Todder angrily. “Twenty dollars is n’t going to do me any good.”
“All I could get,” said Henrietta shortly, and she hurried down the stairs to greet Lorna and Lem with the smiling face of a woman whose lover has just set the happy day.
CHAPTER VI
The next morning Miss Redding held a brief conversation at the breakfast table regarding Lem’s immediate future, the important question being whether Lem should be sent to school. With two school teachers at the table Susan felt she was sure to receive good advice. To Lem’s delight the unanimous opinion was that it was hardly worth while for him to go to school during the brief tag end of the term remaining. When Henrietta Bates said this, Miss Redding had no further doubts, for she had a very high opinion of Miss Bates. There was something safe and solid about Miss Bates that gave weight to her opinion.
Henrietta Bates had made an excellent impression on Miss Redding. Henrietta was one of half a dozen out-of-town teachers who had hastened to Riverbank at the time when, following the trouble over a certain Mrs. Helmuth’s case, the school board had arbitrarily decreed that never again should a married woman teach in Riverbank’s schools. The “foreigners,” as the intruding teachers were called, had immediately become the subject of some of the most ardent hatred and abuse, and some of them had made replies that made them exceedingly unpopular, but Miss Bates had, by good-natured diplomacy, avoided all this. The others had been sent packing as soon as local talent was available to supplant them, but Henrietta had not only remained, but had been rapidly promoted, and was a real favorite with all.
“She’s the kindest and affectionatest woman I ever knew in all my born days,” Miss Susan often said. “Just look how she does for Mr. Todder. It’s like he was her son. She sews on his buttons and mends his socks, and never a sign of flirting with him or anything. I do admire Henrietta Bates highly, and that’s a fact.”
Every one admired Henrietta. She was so large and so cheerful and, withal, so “safe.” She was so wholesome and healthy and free from complaints.
“It’s a wonder to me,” Miss Susan often said, “that no man has grabbed her long ago. If I was a man I’d marry her in a minute. She’s the best there is, to my notion.”
Miss Susan had rejoiced openly when Henrietta’s news came from Spirit Lake.
“Well, I’m glad!” Miss Susan said. “If ever a woman deserved a fine man, Henrietta does.”
As a rule Henrietta was cheerful. She would play the ancient piano any time she was asked, or sing in her very fair voice. She was always ready to make up a set at croquet; she even tried tennis, but had to give it up. “I’m too aged,” she laughed, meaning – as every one knew – she was too heavy.
When she did have her short periods of depression it was because she had not heard from Billy Vane, she said, or had had a letter that was not satisfactory.
“I don’t know what I’ll do when she gets married and goes away,” Miss Susan said. “She’s almost like a sister, the way she helps out. I guess folks don’t know how many things can come up in a boarding-house to set everybody cross at each other, but Henrietta just keeps the front part of the house all nice and friendly all the time. I don’t know whatever I ‘ll do without her.”
It was so in this matter of Lem.
“It is quite useless to send him to school for the short time there is left,” Henrietta told Miss Susan. “He wouldn’t fit into any class, and he’d be unhappy and make work for the teacher and be so far behind his class that the schooling would n’t do him any good. Let him wait until the fall term. Gay and Lorna and I can tutor him a little this summer.”
“If you ain’t too busy getting ready to get married and quit us,” said Susan. “You’ll be so busy getting ready – ”
“I’ll have a little time for Lem, I hope,” Henrietta said brightly, smiling at him. “And Gay and Lorna will be here.”
“Not being lucky enough to have our Billy Vanes,” said Lorna.
“Now don’t be jealous of a poor old maid,” Henrietta teased.
“But we are,” said Lorna, and smiled inwardly. “Nobody loves us.”
She glanced at Freeman Todder, but it was one of his bad mornings, of which he had a great many. He was pale and heavy-eyed and his hand shook. No one at
