The minister stood in the moonlight looking sadly after the wayward boy
whom he had loved for years.
Lynn came swiftly toward her father, scarcely seeing the two strangers.
She had a feeling that he needed comforting. But the minister, not
noticing her approach, had turned and was hurrying into the house by
the side entrance.
"Come on girls, let's have a little excitement," cried Laurie Shafton
gaily, "How about some music? There's a piano in the house I see, let's
boom her up!"
He made a sudden dive and swooped an arm intimately about each girl's
waist, starting them violently toward the steps, forgetting the lame
ankle that was supposed to make him somewhat helpless.
The sudden unexpected action took Marilyn unaware, and before she could
get her footing or do anything about it she caught a swift vision of a
white face in the passing car. Mark had seen the whole thing! She drew
back quickly, indignantly flinging the offending arm from her waist,
and hurried after her father; but it was too late to undo the
impression that Mark must have had. He had passed by.
Inside the door she stopped short, stamping her white shod foot with
quick anger, her face white with fury, her eyes fairly blazing. If
Laurie had seen her now he would scarcely have compared her to a saint.
To think that on this day of trouble and perplexity this gay insolent
stranger should dare to intrude and presume! And before Mark!
But a low spoken word of her mother's reached her from the dining-room,
turning aside her anger: "I hate to ask Lynn to take her into her room. Such a queer girl! It
seems like a desecration! Lynn's lovely room!"
"She had no right to put herself upon us!" said the father in troubled
tones. "She is as far from our daughter as heaven is from the pit. Who
is she, anyway?"
"He merely introduced her as his friend Opal."
"Is there nothing else we can do?"
"We might give her our room, but it would take some time to put it in
order for a guest. There would be a good many things to move--and it
would be rather awkward in the morning, cots in the living-room. I
suppose Lynn could come in with me and you sleep on a cot--!"
"Yes, that's exactly it! Do that. I don't mind."
"I suppose we'll have to," sighed the mother, "for I know Lynn would
hate it having a stranger among her pretty intimate things--!"