CHAPTER XXVIWHAT ELSIE SAID.
“Say, old fellow,” said Ready, edging up to Browning, “lend me fifty, will you?”
“Fifty what?” grunted Bruce.
“Why, fifty dollars. I——”
“Quit your joking.”
“I’m not joking. I need the money. I’m broke.”
“My dear boy,” said Browning, “you’re not broke; you’re cracked. Lend you fifty dollars! I see myself!”
“I am desperate,” asserted Jack wildly. “There is no telling what a man will do when he needs money.”
“That’s so,” admitted Bruce. “Look at all the fellows who get married.”
“Ah!” sighed Dashleigh, “you know they say love is blind.”
“But as a rule,” put in Carker dolefully, “marriage is an eye-opener.”
“I,” laughed Starbright, who was sprawling on a Morris chair, “shall refuse to be mercenary when it comes to marriage, I shall marry for beauty.”
“My dear boy,” said Frank, “the fellow who marries for beauty is usually the victim of——”
“A skin game,” interrupted Ready. “The dollars are good enough for me.”
“Speaking about dollars,” said Bart, “do any of you believe that old story about George Washington throwing a dollar across the Potomac River?”
“Why, of course,” nodded Merry immediately. “It’s a very likely story.”
“I fail to see it in that light. He couldn’t do it.”
“Why not? Washington was a powerful man, and, besides, a dollar would go twice as far in those days as it will now.”
Ready gasped and dropped with a crash upon a chair.
“Fan me!” he said faintly. “Merriwell takes his place at the head of the class. I think I’ll have to touch him for the cold cash.”
“Why is it,” questioned Carker, “that people always speak of money as cold cash?”
“I suppose,” said Merry, laughing softly, “it’s because so many human beings have a way of freezing to it.”
“What—again?” howled Ready, popping bolt upright and staring at Frank. “How do you dare, sir! In my presence, too! I am the only one who has a right to do such things. But, really and truly, I’ve got to borrow some spondulicks before I leave for vacation. Got a bill from my tailor. He wrote on the bottom: ‘Dear sir, if you pay the enclosed bill, you will oblige me; if you don’t, I shall oblige you.’ Now, wouldn’t that bump you!”
“Don’t talk of tailors!” grumbled Browning. “You’ve got a regular hand-me-down suit on.”
“Bah!” retorted Jack instantly. “That suit of yours reminds me of an unripe watermelon.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s so different. One isn’t fit to cut, and the other isn’t cut to fit. Refuse me! Wouldn’t let me have a small loan, eh? Well, you shall repent in sackcloth and ashes. Yea, verily!”
Carker began whistling mournfully to himself.
“Listen to that,” murmured Frank, nudging Ready. “I wonder if he whistles to himself when he’s alone.”
“Prithee I cannot tell,” answered Jack. “I’ve never been with him when he was alone.”
“Fellows,” said Starbright soberly, “I know a scheme whereby we can all make money.”
“Unwind it to us!” cried Ready.
“Let’s hear it,” urged Hodge.
“We’re listening,” said Dashleigh.
“Go on,” urged Browning.
“It’s simple,” assured Dick, still with perfect gravity. “All we have to do is perfume our paper money.”
“Hey?” said Carker, who had stopped whistling.
“What?” grunted Browning, ceasing to puff at his pipe.
“What are you giving us?” muttered Hodge.
“That’s right,” declared the fair-haired freshman. “You see by perfuming our paper money we can add a scent to every dollar.”
Frank laughed again, while Ready thumped himself behind the ear with his clenched fist.
“Another rival!” he groaned. “This is driving me to suicide. And still I need that money.”
“Why, my dear boy,” smiled Frank, “I heard that you won some money from Skelding last night.”
“Oh, no!” Jack hastened to deny. “No money; I merely won a few bets from him.”
There came a rap on the door.
“Come in,” called Merry.
But every fellow in that room, Browning included, sprang to his feet when the door opened and they saw Inza Burrage and her father just outside.
“Perhaps we’re intruding?” suggested Mr. Burrage apologetically.
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Merry. “Come right in!”
He sprang forward and greeted Inza warmly with outstretched hand. She never before had looked so stunning and dashing. At least, Frank thought so.
“We thought we’d come round and call a moment before you left, Frank,” she said, in her well-modulated, musical voice. “You go——”
“To-morrow. I was packing my trunk when the fellows strolled in. I’m glad you came, Inza.”
He drew her into the room, and the boys bowed, greeting with enthusiasm the former mascot of the crew. She spoke to them all, but it seemed that even a little more color mounted to her flushed cheeks when Starbright, the handsome giant freshman, bowed low before her.
And keen eyes might have seen that Dick was not quite at ease, though he made a desperate effort to appear thus.
Mr. Burrage shook hands with the boys, having a pleasant word for each one, but the arrival of Inza put an end to their free-and-easy badinage and joking. They gathered about her in an admiring circle, listening to every word she uttered, each feeling in his heart that she was a most bewilderingly handsome and adorable young lady. In her presence, even Carker forgot to be pessimistic and melancholy, and not once did he speak of the “rumble of the approaching earthquake.”
But Starbright hung on her words in a breathless way, and his heart leaped when she turned toward him with one of her dazzling smiles, or spoke to him directly, and he felt that he was being robbed of his just due, if for a little time she gave him no special attention.
Dick Starbright knew that Frank and Inza were fast friends, he knew they were almost sweethearts, he knew Inza would not be there but for Merry; yet since the day he first saw this dark-eyed, black-haired radiant queen of a girl something he could not hold in check had been growing in his breast—growing, growing, growing. He sought to tell himself that it was no more than mere admiration for an unusually handsome young lady, and he sought to believe that he could readily and easily forget her; but she crept into his dreams with her stately grace, her dark, bewildering eyes, her laugh that thrilled the blood, her mouth that seemed made for kisses.
And now, sitting in Merriwell’s room, with Inza near, his blood throbbed in his big, strong body with all the full flood of healthy, robust youth.
“Why shouldn’t I win her for my own?” he mentally cried.
Then he looked at Frank Merriwell, and he believed he had found his answer. Contrasting himself with Frank, he seemed very immature, despite his size, and there was something of greenness about him that must count against him. How dared he think for a single moment that he, the raw youth, could win from this clever and experienced young man of the world! He was crushed and abashed.
Coming out of his trance, Dick found Frank was telling Inza of some photographs he had taken. She wished to see them, and he said they were in an adjoining room. She rose at once, and they passed beyond some portières.
Though he still could hear her voice through the open door, it seemed to Dick Starbright that something went out of the sunshine, leaving it dull and somber, and there was a strange sensation like a pain in his heart.
Frank and Inza chatted over the pictures, which consisted of a group of the Yale football-team, with Merry the central figure, and a number of snap shots of the team in practise and at play. The smell of Browning’s pipe pervaded the rooms, and Merry threw open a door leading into the hall, which gave a draft.
“I suppose you are glad the holidays have come?” said Inza.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “You see, it is different with me than with other fellows. They have homes, and fathers, and mothers, and brothers, and sisters to which they go. Their fathers and mothers are waiting to greet them with affection, while their brothers and sisters will regard them with admiration and pride. They are going to pleasant firesides, Christmas trees and merry times. I have no home, no mother, sisters, or brothers. True, I have a father, but he is worn and old and strange to me, for I’ve never seen much of him. But I love him, just the same. Poor old man! He has suffered much, and now, with no enemy to harass him further, I trust he may have peace and happiness.”
Inza was touched by Merry’s words. For the first time, it seemed, she fully realized his unfortunate position in the world.
“I’m sorry, Frank,” she said, looking into his eyes. “But your play has given you money so that you might purchase a home of your own, and your father has a fortune. He could buy a mansion.”
“He might,” admitted Merry; “but he cannot get over the feeling that the ghost of his enemy may rise to haunt him as of old, and he is the most restless person I ever saw. Were he a younger man, I’m sure nothing could keep him from traveling constantly. Even now, I worry for fear he may take a freakish notion to strike out suddenly for parts unknown.”
“Are you sure his mind is just right?”
“I think it is—now. A short time ago I was not so sure; but never again will he fall beneath the spell of Brandon Drood. Drood is dead, and his wicked career is ended.”
“He was a dreadful man!” exclaimed Inza. “Think how he tried to bury your poor father alive! He should have been punished for his awful crimes.”
“I am willing to leave his soul in the hands of One who doeth all things well,” came solemnly from Merry’s lips.
“Where do you expect to spend the most of your vacation?”
“Starbright has invited me to visit him in his home, and I think I shall go there. Then I am to meet father in New York. Several of the fellows are going to visit Starbright.”
“Isn’t he a splendid fellow!” exclaimed the dark-eyed girl enthusiastically. “He is so big and grand! It was magnificent to see him tear through the enemy’s line in the football-game. And he’s handsome, too!”
“Here! here!” cried Merry reprovingly. “This will never do! Why, I believe you are interested in him, Inza!”
His heart was smitten by a pang of jealousy, for he was like other fellows in this respect, and no one is flawless. She laughed when she saw him looking at her almost accusingly.
“I am,” she boldly declared. “Why shouldn’t I be? He is your friend, and you have told me what a great, big-hearted chap he is. You want me to like all of your friends, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes; but there are different ways of liking a fellow, Inza.”
“I like him as I might a big, handsome brother.”
“Oh, well! that will do. I can’t object to that.”
“Do you think,” she said teasingly, “that you could object under any circumstances? If I really and truly fell in love with him, could you object?”
She had him cornered, and he knew it.
“Oh, I don’t suppose I’d have a right to object!” he laughed, though that pang of jealousy still gnawed at his heart.
“Surely not!” Inza exclaimed. “According to your own tell, Dick is one of the finest fellows in the world, and were he to take a fancy to me, you ought to be glad and happy. It would be your duty to help it along.”
He felt that she was teasing him, but still it was a tender spot, and it made him squirm a bit.
“Inza,” he said sincerely, “once I did my best to keep you from marrying a man your father had selected for you, but a man you told me you did not love.”
“For which,” she admitted, “I owe you much. I can see now that it would have been a fatal folly.”
“I felt that way about it, dear girl, and that was why I did my best to keep you from taking the false step. Had I known you really and truly loved him, I should have remained silent. In this case it is different, for Starbright is worthy of a fine girl; but he is young yet—even younger than you, Inza.”
“Not much younger. A year cannot make much difference.”
“No, not much. If I knew Starbright loved you and you cared for him more than any one else, whatever I might feel in my heart, I would do my best to bring you together, and would say, ‘Bless you, my children.’”
She laughed in her merry way.
“I believe it, Frank,” she said. “But I was jollying, that’s all. There is no danger that Starbright will ever care for me that way, and perhaps I’d not care for him if he did. I am waiting to be one of the bridesmaids when you are married to Elsie. I shall live and die an old maid.”
She made this final declaration in the most solemn manner possible. They were standing by a window, now, looking out upon the bare elms and the ground lightly covered with snow, which had fallen the previous night.
“I’ll wager something you do not!” he exclaimed, leaning over her shoulder.
“What will you wager?”
“A kiss,” he breathed softly. “And, as I know I’ll win, I’ll take it now.”
“Oh, no! don’t be so hasty, sir! I’m not willing to confess that I shall lose the wager.”
“But still,” he pleaded, “for old times, Inza. You remember the far-away days at Fardale? You remember the night we leaned on the gate before your home, with the moon hidden for a moment behind a cloud? You remember what happened then, Inza?”
She grew strangely pale, and then the blood rushed to her cheeks in a burning flood.
“I’ll never forget, Frank!” she whispered, a tremor running over her. “Never!”
Memory took her back to that sweet summer evening of her girlhood days. It seemed that she could see the peaceful, moonlighted village street and could feel the touch of the fragrant breeze that fanned her cheek. Then Frank was a handsome cadet at the little military academy, and she had loved him with all the depth of her impulsive girlish heart. He had kissed her over the gate in that masterful, undeniable way of his, and a million times since then she had thought of the joy of that moment.
But years had wrought a change in them both. Between them had risen a pretty, sweet-faced, golden-haired girl. That girl was Inza’s dearest friend, and sometimes her heart had cried out in rebellion against Elsie, who had caused Frank’s thoughts to stray from her.
“Those were happy days,” said Frank gently.
“Yes,” came faintly from her lips; “happier than I have ever known since.”
She felt his arm slip across her shoulders, and, for a moment, she permitted it to remain there, little dreaming that she had again come between Frank and Elsie.
Outside the door that opened into the hall—the door that Merry opened to permit fresh air to sweep through the room—stood a blue-eyed girl, rooted to the floor, gazing in upon them, her heart throbbing madly and painfully in her breast. It was Elsie, who had mounted the stairs, and she saw Frank bending over Inza, heard the murmur of their voices, beheld him put his arm around Inza’s waist—then turned and fled noiselessly down the stairs, not pausing until she had reached the street; and everything that had looked so bright but a moment before suddenly seemed to change.