Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/158

148 dancing, in a non-committal little statement and in a manner that forbade questions. She said she hoped to return by late June. She could not lay bare to Miss Katherine Park the plain, homely details of her home life! Better just to slip away unobtrusively as if only for a week or two, and write an explanation later.

Miss Park had sighed over Reba's brief little announcement.

"I haven't succeeded," she confessed to Miss Bartholomew that evening, "in getting one step nearer our little Miss Jerome—not really. I've tried—tried my best, and failed. I thought for a while I was making headway, winning her confidence slowly, bit by bit, but I was mistaken. Here she is stealing away as mysteriously as she came. I don't for one minute believe she's coming back. She had such a guilty manner when she told me this noon; and when I referred to our summer plans (you know I'd asked her to help me at one of the girls' camps), she blushed and wouldn't raise her eyes. It troubles me."

"I don't see why it should, Katherine."

"I'll tell you, then. I'll confess. I'm afraid that she has used up all her money. If she has, then I'm the one to blame for it! You see, I thought I was being kind—getting close to her. She seemed so anxious to have some pretty clothes, and made me believe she had all sorts of money which she had never been taught how to spend. She asked me if I thought it was wrong—wicked, for her to buy one wonderful costume, no matter what it cost—just as wonderful, she said, as the most fashionable woman would wear at the most fashionable summer-resort on the Atlantic