to cry, Marjorie sprang to her feet and obeyed the instruction, but the missing letter was not forthcoming. “How could I have lost it,” she mourned despairingly. “I always tuck my letters inside my blouse. But I’ve never lost one before to-day.”
“I don’t like to pile up misery, Lieutenant, but that seems to me a rather careless practice,” commented her mother. “I am truly sorry for you. Perhaps you left it in school instead of putting it inside your blouse.”
Marjorie shook a dejected head. “No; I didn’t. I wish now that I had. I know I put it inside my blouse. I was anxious to bring it home and show it to you. I would feel worried about losing any letter that had been written me, but this is a great deal worse. It was a very confidential letter. In it Lucy spoke of – of – last winter and of her plans for the future. Suppose someone were to find it who didn’t like her very well? The person who found it might gossip about it. That would be dreadful. Of course, anyone who finds it can see by the address that it is my letter. I think most of the girls would be honorable enough to give it back. A few of them perhaps wouldn’t. None of the four juniors who were on the sophomore basket-ball team last year like me very well. And there’s Mignon, too. I wouldn’t say so to anyone but you, Captain, but I’m not quite sure what she might do.”
“No, my dear, I am afraid you can never trust Mignon La Salle very far.” Mrs. Dean grew grave. “I made up my mind to that the day your girl friends were here at that little party you gave while you were sick. If ever a girl’s eyes spelled treachery, Mignon’s showed it that afternoon. Several times I have intended mentioning it to you. You know, however, that I do not like to interfere in your school affairs. Then, too, since her father so depends on your help and that of your girl chums, it seems hardly right in me to wish that you might be entirely free from her companionship. Yet, at heart, I am not particularly in favor of your association with her. Sooner or later you will find yourself in the thick of some disagreeable affair for which she is responsible.”
“I am always a little bit afraid of that, too,” was Marjorie’s dispirited answer. “I try not to think so, though. But it’s like trying to walk across a slippery log without falling off. Mignon is so – so – different from the rest of us. You know I told you of the things she said about that nice girl who works for Miss Archer and her sister. Well, the girl came to school to-day. Her name is Veronica Browning and she’s a senior.”
Marjorie went on to tell her captain of the locker-room incident, and the walk home from luncheon, ending with: “She is awfully dear and sweet. We are friends already. I may invite her to come and see us, mayn’t I, Captain?”
“By all means,” came the prompt response. “I am very glad, Lieutenant, that you have no false pride. It is contemptible. You may invite your new friend here as soon as you like. No doubt when I see Miss Archer she will tell me more of her protégé of her own accord. Judging from what you say of her, she seems to be a rather mysterious young person.”
“She acts a little as Connie used to act before I knew her well,” declared Marjorie. “She has the same fashion of starting to say something and then stopping short. I think it is only because she is quite poor. But she doesn’t seem to mind it as Connie did. She just smiles about it.”
“A young philosopher,” commented Mrs. Dean, her eyes twinkling. “I shall look forward to knowing her.”
“Oh, you will surely like Veronica,” Marjorie confidently predicted. The next instant her face fell. “Oh, dear,” she sighed, as fresh recollection of her loss smote her, “what shall I do about that letter? I’ll simply have to tell Lucy that I lost it. She’s so peculiar, too. I am afraid she won’t like it.”
“Don’t put off telling her,” counseled Mrs. Dean. “It is right that you should. Perhaps when you go to school to-morrow morning, you may find that some one of your friends has picked it up. I sincerely hope so, for your sake, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Marjorie brightened a trifle. “I am going to hope as hard as ever I can that I’ll have it back by to-morrow.”
Marjorie’s earnest wish that the lost letter might be returned to her the next morning met with unfulfillment. Anxious inquiry among her close friends revealed no clue to the whereabouts of the missing letter. Nor, during the long day which anxiety made longer, did any of her schoolmates seek her with the joyful news, “Here is a letter I found, Marjorie, which is addressed to you.”
At the close of the afternoon session, which had lagged interminably, Marjorie turned slow steps toward Miss Archer’s big living-room office where Lucy Warner now claimed the secretary’s desk.
“Why, Marjorie, I was just thinking of you!” Lucy’s bluish-green eyes lighted with pleasure as Marjorie approached her desk. “I was hoping you’d run up soon to see me. I am so glad my hope came true.” Her hand went out to Marjorie in cordial greeting.
“I am ever so glad to have a chance to talk to you,” returned Marjorie earnestly as she took Lucy’s hand. “I received your letter. It was splendid. I loved every line of it. I – but I am afraid you won’t feel so glad that I came when I tell you what I’ve done.” A quick flush dyed Marjorie’s cheeks.
“I guess it is nothing very dreadful.” Lucy smiled her utmost faith in her pretty visitor.
“Lucy, I – well – I hate to tell you, but I’ve lost that letter you wrote me.” Marjorie looked the picture of anxiety as she made the disagreeable confession.
“You’ve lost it!” gasped Lucy, her heavy dark brows meeting in the old ominous frown.
“Yes. I tucked it inside my blouse,” went on Marjorie bravely, “and when I reached home it was gone.”
Lucy’s green eyes fastened themselves on Marjorie in an angry stare. For a moment her great liking for the gentle girl was swallowed up in wrath at her carelessness. Intensely methodical, Lucy found such carelessness hard to excuse. Remembering tardily how much she owed Marjorie, she made a valiant effort to suppress her anger. “It’s too bad,” she muttered. “I – you see – I gave you my confidence. I wouldn’t care to have anyone else know all that I wrote you.”
“Don’t I know that?” Marjorie asked almost piteously. “I can’t begin to tell you how dreadfully I feel about it. I know you think it careless in me to have tucked it inside my blouse. It was careless. I’ve waited all day, thinking someone who might have found it would return it. My name on the envelope ought to insure a prompt return if I dropped it in or near the school building. But if I lost it in the street and a stranger found it, then I’m afraid I wouldn’t stand much chance of getting it again.” Marjorie made a little gesture of hopelessness. “You must know how humiliated I feel over it. But that won’t bring the letter back,” she concluded with deep dejection.
During this long apology Lucy’s probing eyes had been riveted unblinkingly on Marjorie, as though in an effort to plumb the precise degree of the latter’s regret for the accident. “Don’t worry about it any more,” she said rather brusquely. “It may not amount to anything after all. If you dropped it in the street, the wind may have blown it away; then no one would ever see it. If you dropped it in the school building, it may be returned to you, or perhaps to me. My full name was signed at the end of it. It has taught me a lesson, though.”
Within herself Lucy knew that this last speech bordered on the unkind. Yet she could not resist making it. Although she was earnestly endeavoring to live up to the new line of conduct which she had laid down for herself on the day when she had confessed her fault to Marjorie, much of her former antagonistic attitude toward life still remained. Having, for years, cultivated a spirit of envy and bitterness, she was
