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By Root 20162 0

to persuade him to his old affection for her, or if not that, then by her presence to prevent him from devoting himself too wholly to these others. Decidedly, to go away like this, even for the holidays, was not good. In her absence he might desert her completely for another girl, and if so, then would it not be her fault? At once she pondered as to what excuse she could make in order to return this day. But realizing that in view of all these preliminary preparations this would seem inexplicably unreasonable, to her mother most of all, she decided to endure it as she had planned until Christmas afternoon, then to return, never to leave for so long a period again.

But ad interim, all her thoughts were on how and in what way she could make more sure, if at all, of Clyde’s continued interest and social and emotional support, as well as marriage in the future. Supposing he had lied to her, how could she influence him, if at all, not to do so again? How to make him feel that lying between them was not right? How to make herself securely first in his heart against the dreams engendered by the possible charms of another?

How?

Chapter 30

But Roberta’s return to Lycurgus and her room at the Gilpins’ Christmas night brought no sign of Clyde nor any word of explanation. For in connection with the Griffiths in the meantime there had been a development relating to all this which, could she or Clyde have known, would have interested both not a little. For subsequent to the Steele dance that same item read by Roberta fell under the eyes of Gilbert. He was seated at the breakfast table the Sunday morning after the party and was about to sip from a cup of coffee when he encountered it. On the instant his teeth snapped about as a man might snap his watch lid, and instead of drinking he put his cup down and examined the item with more care. Other than his mother there was no one at the table or in the room with him, but knowing that she, more than any of the others, shared his views in regard to Clyde, he now passed the paper over to her.

“Look at who’s breaking into society now, will you?” he admonished sharply and sarcastically, his eyes radiating the hard and contemptuous opposition he felt. “We’ll be having him up here next!”

“Who?” inquired Mrs. Griffiths, as she took the paper and examined the item calmly and judicially, yet not without a little of outwardly suppressed surprise when she saw the name. For although the fact of Clyde’s having been picked up by Sondra in her car sometime before and later been invited to dinner at the Trumbulls’, had been conveyed to the family sometime before, still a society notice in The Star was different. “Now I wonder how it was that he came to be invited to that?” meditated Mrs. Griffiths who was always conscious of her son’s mood in regard to all this.

“Now, who would do it but that little Finchley snip, the little smart aleck?” snapped Gilbert. “She’s got the idea from somewhere— from Bella for all I know—that we don’t care to have anything to do with him, and she thinks this is a clever way to hit back at me for some of the things I’ve done to her, or that she thinks I’ve done. At any rate, she thinks I don’t like her, and that’s right, I don’t. And Bella knows it, too. And that goes for that little Cranston show-off, too. They’re both always running around with her. They’re a set of show-offs and wasters, the whole bunch, and that goes for their brothers, too—Grant Cranston and Stew Finchley—and if something don’t go wrong with one or another of that bunch one of these days, I miss my guess. You mark my word! They don’t do a thing, the whole lot of them, from one year’s end to the other but play around and dance and run here and there, as though there wasn’t anything else in the world for them to do. And why you and Dad let Bella run with ‘em as much as she does is more than I can see.”

To this his mother protested. It was not possible for her to entirely estrange Bella from one portion of this local social group and direct her definitely toward the homes of certain others. They all