“Did you say nothing to him but nice things?”
“We-ll, not exactly, – but he said the things he said first.”
“Were the things he said worse than the things you said?”
“No!” with a toss of her independent head, “I gave him back as good as he sent.”
“You shouldn’t have done it. You knew how the things he said hurt, and with your superior knowledge of what it meant to be wounded, you were cruel to hurt him so.”
“But he should have known! That kind of philosophy is above me. Suppose the Allies conducted their warfare under those principles, what would become of us? Germany hit first and France and Belgium knew how it hurt, and so they should not have hit back. There is a big hole in your reasoning, honey.”
“But that is not the same. Germany and France didn’t love one another, while you and Andy – ”
“Well, it is all over now!” and Nance composed herself and tried to go on with her knitting. Molly thought in her heart perhaps it was not so “over” as Nance thought.
“Why did you and Andy quarrel?”
“I had promised when Father no longer needed me that I would – would – marry him. How could I tell that Mother would want to come live with me when poor Father was gone? Andy came as soon as he learned of Father’s death and seemed to think I could pick right up and marry him, and when I objected to such unseemly haste he said I had been flirting with him. The idea of such a thing! He got it into his head that Dr. Flint, the physician who had been with us through poor Father’s long illness, was the cause of my holding back.”
“A young doctor?”
“Ye-es!”
“Was he – was he – attentive?”
“Perhaps – well, yes – he did propose to me but I had no idea of accepting him. Andy should have known me well enough to realize that I couldn’t be so low as to jilt him. When Andy came, Mother had just told me that she never expected to leave me again. I never did have a chance to tell this to him, he was so angry and so jealous. He wanted me to marry him immediately and leave Vermont, – and how could I when Mother was home, sick and miserable and reproaching herself for having been away from Father so much?”
“Did your mother not know of your engagement to Andy?”
“No-o! You see, poor Mother was not – was not the kind of mother one confided in much. Afterwards, when I nursed her through all those months, she was so softened if I had had anything to confide I should have done so, but then there was nothing left to confide.”
“Poor old Nance!” said Molly lovingly.
“Well, I’m not sorry for myself a bit. No doubt I might have gone whining to Andy and made him take back all the things he said, but I am no whiner. It was a good thing we found out in time we could say such things to each other!”
“Maybe it was a good thing to find out in time how it hurt to say such things and have such things said to one, and then it would never happen again,” said the hopeful Molly.
Nance divined that Molly was thinking how best she could bring these two estranged lovers together, and determined to frustrate any matchmaking plans the young matron might be hatching.
“Promise me, Molly, you will not say a thing to Andy or to anyone. It is something that is hopelessly mixed up and my pride would never recover if Andy should know that I cared.”
“You do care then?”
“Of course I care! I never had very many friends and if I cared for Andy enough to engage myself to him, I could not get over it ever, I am afraid. But you have not promised yet.”
“I promise,” said Molly sadly. “But if you love Andy, it does seem so foolish – ”
“But remember you have promised!”
CHAPTER III
THE WOULD-BE’S
What a chattering there was as the crowd of girls gathered for the weekly meeting of their literary club! Professor Green beat a hasty retreat from the library. He declared that listening to schoolgirl fiction was no treat to him. Besides there was so much to be read concerning the war in that month of March, 1917, and little time in which to read it. War was an obsession with Edwin Green. Waking and sleeping it was ever with him. He regretted his being unable to enlist as a private in the French army, so strong were his sympathies with that struggling nation. Certain that his country would finally drop its neutrality and come out strongly for democracy and the Allies, he could hardly wait for the final declaration of war. He had his den, safe from the encroachments of the “Would-be Authors’ Club,” and there he ensconced himself with enough newspapers and magazines to furnish reading matter for the whole of Wellington.
The rules of the club were as follows: Two pieces of original fiction must be read at each meeting. A chairman for the evening must be appointed by the two performers. All manuscript must be written legibly if not typewritten, so that the club need not have to wait while the author tried to read her own writing. Criticism must be given and taken in good humor and good faith.
Molly, in forming this club, had endeavored to have in it only those students who were really interested in short story writing and ambitious to perfect themselves, but in spite of her ideals there were some members who were in it for the fun they got out of it or for a certain prestige they fancied they would gain from these weekly meetings at the home of the popular wife of a popular professor. These slackers were constantly bringing excuses for plots when their time came to read, or trying to work off on the club old essays and theses on various subjects not in the least related to fiction.
“You are to read this evening, I believe, Mary,” said Molly to Mary Neil as the library filled. “You missed last time and so got put on this week.”
“Yes – I – that is – you see, I sat up all night trying to finish a story but couldn’t get it to suit me.”
“Did you bring it?”
“Oh no, it was too much in the rough.”
“That’s too bad, Mary!” cried Lilian Swift. “There are plenty of us who had things to read and you cut us out of the chance.”
“Surely some of you must have brought things,” said Molly, trying not to smile, knowing full well that in almost every pocket of the really and truly “Would-be’s” some gem of purest ray serene in the shape of a manuscript was only waiting to be dived for. The self-conscious expression on at least a dozen faces put her mind at rest in regard to the program of the evening.
“It seems I have the appointing of a chairman for the meeting in my power, since the other reader has fallen out of the running,” said Molly, looking as severely as she could look at the sullen, handsome Mary Neil, “so I appoint Billie McKym.”
Billie, a most ardent scribbler, had been drawn into the procession of short-story fiends by her dear friend Thelma Larson, who was destined to become famous as a writer of fiction. Billie had no great talent but she possessed a fresh breezy line of dialogue that covered a multitude of sins in the way of plot formation, motivation, crisis, climax and what not.
“Remember, Billie, the chair is not the floor,” teased one of the members.
Billie was a great talker and although she was no pronounced success as a writer of fiction, she was a good critic of the performance of others.
“Just for that I’ll ask you, Miss Smarty, to serve as vice, and when I have something important to say I’ll put you in the chair for keeps.”
“Oh, let Mrs. Green begin and stop squabbling,” demanded a girl who had a plot she was dying to divulge and devoutly hoped she would be called on when their hostess got through.
“Then begin!” and Billie rapped for order.
Molly took her seat by the reading-lamp and opened her manuscript. Having to read