“You’re a fool.”  She was raging.  “You’ll let her marry him and have the heartaches afterward.”

“She won’t marry him,” I snapped, and walked away with my chin up, leaving her staring.

But I wasn’t so sure as I pretended to be.  Mr. von Inwald and Mr. Jennings had been closeted together most of the morning, and Mr. von Inwald was whistling as he started out for the military walk.  It seemed as if the very thing that had given Mr. Pierce his chance to make good had improved Mr. Jennings’ disposition enough to remove the last barrier to Miss Jennings’ wedding with somebody else.

Well, what’s one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

CHAPTER XXVIII

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

Even if we hadn’t known, we’d have guessed there was something in the air.  There was an air of subdued excitement during the rest hour in the spring-house, and a good bit of whispering and laughing, in groups which would break up with faces as long as the moral law the moment they saw my eye on them.

They were planning a mutiny, as you may say, and I guess no sailors on a pirate ship were more afraid of the captain’s fist than they were of Mr. Pierce’s disapproval.  He’d been smart enough to see that most of them, having bullied other people all their lives, liked the novelty of being bullied themselves.  And now they were getting a new thrill by having a revolt.  They were terribly worked up.

Miss Patty stayed after the others had gone, sitting in front of the empty fireplace in the same chair Mr. Pierce usually took, and keeping her back to me.  When I’d finished folding the steamer rugs and putting them away, I went around and stood in front of her.

“Your eyes are red,” I remarked.

“I’ve got a cold.”  She was very haughty.

“Your nose isn’t red,” I insisted.  “And, anyhow, you say you never have a cold.”

“I wish you would let me alone, Minnie.”  She turned her back to me.  “I dare say I may have a cold if I wish.”

“Do you know what they are saying here?” I demanded.  “Do you know that Miss Cobb has found out in some way or other who Mr. von Inwald is?  And that the four o’clock gossip edition says your father has given his consent and that you can go and buy a diadem or whatever you are going to wear, right off?”

“Well,” she said, in a choked voice, with her back to me, “what of it?  Didn’t you and Mr. Pierce both do your best to bring it about?”

“Our what?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

“You made father well.  He’s so p—­pleasant he’ll do anything except leave this awful place!”

“Well, of all the ungrateful people—­” I began, and then Mr. Pierce came in.  He had a curious way of stopping when he saw her, as if she just took the wind out of his sails, so to speak, and then of whipping off his hat, if anything with sails can wear a hat, and going up to her with his heart in his eyes.  He always went straight to her and stopped suddenly about two feet away, trying to think of something ordinary to say.  Because the extraordinary thing he wanted to say was always on the end of his tongue.