Excited by the crowd, she flung out her arms and fluffy skirts as she came forward. A sudden whirl brought her up against a torch held by one of the woodsmen, and in an instant she was ablaze. Like a flash, Clarice upset a huge jar of daisies and rolled the child back and forth on the soaked rug. While the curtain was hastily rung down, Clarice picked up the child and tried to soothe her. The fluffy dress was a wet, charred rag, but Sylvia was unharmed.
“Darling,” choked Dean Walters, snatching the child, “it was the quickest—” she began. Then turning to Clarice, she said, “Come in to see me tomorrow.”
“Isn’t it lucky I had to give up the part!” said Pat to Jack. “I should never have known what to do. And since the kiddie wasn’t harmed, how wonderfully it will help to reinstate Clarice.”
Frances, who was in the woodsmen’s hut just back of them, heard no more; but this much was enough.
“Clarice,” cried Mrs. Vincent, “are you burned at all?”
“Not a bit,” replied the girl, a bit shaky, now the excitement was over.
“What ever could I have said to Albert—to your father—if any harm had come to you!”
“Well, none did,” said Clarice, starting for the dressing room.
“She’s tired and excited,” said Jane kindly, as the chaperon’s lips quivered and her troubled eyes followed the progress of her favorite across the stage.
“Did you ever know anybody to act so quickly?” demanded Mrs. Vincent proudly. “Most people didn’t know what had happened. I guess the Dean won’t be quite so ready to—” Realizing suddenly that she was saying too much in her excitement, she stopped abruptly and hurried off the stage.
The following day, Jane, Anne, Frances, and Ruth were sitting on a bench in Reservoir Park, facing the west. A beautiful sunset was dyeing the sky a brilliant crimson and gold. They had gone for a walk after dinner, and now were resting and discussing the events of the preceding evening.
“It’s very clear to me,” Frances was saying emphatically, “that the Dean must have decided upon something drastic regarding Clarice; that Pat knew about it, and got into trouble helping her out.”
“And then thought it might show the Dean that the girls liked and trusted the real Clarice if she had a big part in the show,” continued Anne, tracing a pattern in the dust of the path with a small twig.
“I know that she, herself, taught Clarice that dance,” contributed Ruth, who was industriously pulling a daisy apart, meanwhile saying to herself, “‘He loves me; he loves me not.’ Clarice told me so when I pressed the question last night as to where she had learned it.”
Jane, who had been listening silently with thoughtfully knitted brows and a puzzled expression in her honest grey eyes, now sprang up and faced the three on the bench.
“I think I have it!”
“What?” demanded Ruth in alarm. “Not measles!” In one of the dormitories there was a mild epidemic of that disease of childhood.
“Oh, no,” laughed Jane, “but listen! The night Pat was missing from her room, I was in the bathroom between ten-thirty and eleven. You remember, Ruthie, I told you that the salad we had at dinner made me feel sick?”
Ruth nodded.
“While I was in there, I heard someone cross the hall and go very softly into Clarice’s room—it’s right next to the bathroom, you know. It didn’t sound like Clarice, for she puts her heels down so hard; and the person was very quiet. At the time, I didn’t pay much attention, or try to figure it out; I was feeling pretty sick. But since you’ve been talking, this suddenly all came back to me. Do you know what I think? I’ll bet that Pat discovered Clarice was out for a good time somewhere, and took her room so her absence wouldn’t be noticed. Their hair is about the same shade, and in the dark it would be easy to—”
“Jane! Jane!” cried Anne joyfully. “I believe you have solved the puzzle.”
“Listen,” Frances broke in, “to what I overheard Pat say last night!” And she repeated what she heard of Patricia’s conversation with Jack.
“I’ll bet the Dean intended to drop Clarice if she got another demerit,” said Ruth, when Frances had finished.
“And it fits right in with what Dolly started to say last night,” said Jane, nodding with satisfaction.
“Now all we need to know is whether Clarice was out after hours last Thursday,” concluded Anne; “and when we get home, I’m going to ask her.”
“And if she was?” queried Jane.
“Then—I think—” replied Anne slowly, “that I shall tell her what we suspect. I was with Clarice quite a bit the first of last year, and got to know her fairly well. There’s more good in her than one would suspect, and she’s the last person who’d let anybody else take her punishments.”
“But, Anne,” protested Jane, as they rose to go. The brilliant colors of the sky had faded, and it was beginning to get dark. “Won’t you be undoing all that Pat tried to bring about?”
“No, for the Dean had a long talk with Clarice this afternoon, and they understand each other perfectly. I imagine that Clarice was quite frank about herself, for she told me the Dean was just lovely to her, and regretted their not having understood each other before. Clarice has pretty much of a crush, and she’ll do anything for a person she loves. You see, Clarice’s mother died a number of years ago, and Mr. Tyson has lived in boarding houses and hotels ever since. He adored Clarice, and simply spoiled her, until she became very headstrong. Then he decided to send her to college in the hope that its discipline and associations would sort of make her over—”
“But, Anne,” interrupted Jane; “if you knew all this, why didn’t you tell us before? We might have helped, instead of sitting in judgment on her so often.”
“I didn’t know all of it until this morning, and you’d never guess who told me. Dolly.”
“Dolly!” exclaimed the other girls simultaneously.
“You remember the break she made last night about ‘Albert’? Well, I think she wanted to explain that a bit; so she waited for me after church, and on the way home told me what I have just repeated to you. She met Mr. Tyson and Clarice at the seashore, somewhere in Massachusetts, a couple of years ago; and I guess, again last summer.”
“Then that’s why she’s so fond of Clarice,” remarked Frances; “and I’ll bet my last dollar she’s fond of ‘Albert’ too. Where does he live?”
“Boston.”
“Ah, ha! She gets a letter from Boston every week!” cried Frances triumphantly.
“How do you know?” demanded Jane.
“Have you forgotten that I bring down the mail at noon every day?”
Jane did not reply; for they were by that time at the door of Arnold Hall. As soon as they entered, Anne went in search of Clarice; and nobody saw either of them again that night.
CHAPTER
