  Meanwhile a very different scene was being enacted in the Granger Place Seminary. Gwynette Poindexter-Jones occupied the largest and most attractively furnished room on the second floor of the dormitory building, and her two best friends shared the one adjoining. There was a bath between with doors opening upon a narrow private corridor. Gwynette had not liked the room when she first arrived, as it was, she declared, too “barnlike” in its barrenness. Miss Granger regretted this, as she assured the daughter of her richest patron, but she really could not furnish the rooms to please the young ladies, and there was no other apartment available at that late period of the term. The haughty Gwynette had then requested that the furniture in the room be removed. After this had been done, she brought from her mother’s home by the sea handsome mahogany pieces upholstered in rich blue. There were portieres and window hangings to match and priceless pictures adorned the walls. The furnishing in the room of her friends had remained unchanged and was far more appropriate, in that it suggested studiousness rather than indolence and luxury. Gwynette, in a velvet dressing robe of the same rich blue embroidered with gold in chrysanthemum design, was lying at full length on a many-cushioned lounge, a blue and gold slipper dangling from the toe of one foot. She was reading a forbidden novel, and eating chocolate creams, when there came a soft tap on the door leading into the main corridor. Gwynette always kept it locked that she need not be surprised by the appearance of Madam Vandeheuton, monitor of the dormitory, or by one of the infrequent visits of Miss Granger herself. Sitting erect, the girl’s eyes narrowed as she pondered. Should she keep very still and pretend that she was out, or—— Her thought was interrupted by a low voice calling: “Gwyn, let us in, can’t you!” Languidly the girl rose and, after unlocking the door, she inquired of the two who entered: “What’s the idea? You know the door between our rooms is always unlocked. Couldn’t you come in that way?” Beulah Hollingsworth reached down to the little blue velvet stool near the couch and helped herself to a chocolate. “Of course we could have come the usual way, only we were passing through the corridor and so this door was nearer.” “Well, don’t do it again. I implore.” Gwynette once more stretched at full length and ease as she remarked indolently, “It’s easier for you to go around than for me to get up. Well?” She looked inquiringly at Patricia Sullivan. “Did you call on the sphynx and get at her secret? Sit down, do! It makes me tired to see you standing so stiffly as though you had ramrods for backbones.” Both of the girls sat down, one on a Louis XVI chair and the other on one of recent and more comfortable design. Beulah began— “Yes, we called and found Clare Tasselwood as uncommunicative as she was when we met her in the garden and tried to draw her out.” Patricia continued— “But I am more than ever convinced that the secretive Clare is the daughter of a younger son of a noble English family. My theory is that she is going to keep quiet about it until the older son dies, and then those who befriended her when she was unknown will be honored as her guests when she takes her rightful place.” “Well, I for one shall cultivate her. An invitation to visit the castle home of Lord Tasselwood would be most welcome to me. You girls may do as you please about it.” Gwynette was again in a sitting posture and she glanced inquiringly at her companions. They both declared that they wished to be included. “Then, firstly, we must obtain permission to give a spread worthy of her presence, at The Palms, no less, even if it costs our combined allowances for a month.” Then they planned together what they would wear and whom they would invite. “We’ll ask my brother to bring down as many cadets as we have girls,” was Gwyn’s final decision. When Clare Tasselwood received the gilt-edged invitation, there was a little twist to one corner of her month which was her way of smiling when she was amused, and cynical. She had overheard a conversation the day they had met in the garden. “The Lady Clara of Tasselwood Manor accepts with pleasure,” she told her reflection in the mirror. |
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