He limped across the room to the stair door, which was situated at one side of the living-room, and opened it. "Connie," he called, "Marjorie's come to see us."

There was a sound of quick footsteps on the stairs and Constance appeared. "I didn't know you were here," she apologized.

"Where were you on Thursday?" began Marjorie, laughingly. "You promised to come over. Don't you remember?"

"Yes," returned Constance, briefly. Then with a swift return of the old, chilling reserve, which of late she had seemed to lose, "It was impossible for me to come."

Marjorie scrutinized her friend's face. The look of impa.s.sivity had come back to it. "What is the matter, Constance?" she questioned anxiously.

"Has anything happened?"

An expression of intense pain leaped into Constance's blue eyes. "I've something to tell you, Marjorie. It's dreadful. I----" With a m.u.f.fled sob she threw herself, face down, upon the old velvet couch, her slender shoulders shaking with pa.s.sionate grief.

"Why, Constance!" Marjorie regarded the sobbing girl in sympathetic amazement.

Charlie went over to the couch and patted Constance's fair head. "Don't cry, Connie," he pleaded. Then, limping to a dilapidated writing desk in the corner, which Marjorie never remembered to have seen open before, he took from one of the lower pigeonholes a small, glittering object.

"This is what makes Connie cry." He opened his hand and disclosed a little object on his outstretched palm. "Shall I throw the old thing into the fire, Connie?"

With a sharp e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of dismay, Constance sprang from the couch. One swift glance toward the desk, then she caught Charlie's tiny hand in hers. "Give it to Connie, this minute," she commanded sternly. For the instant Marjorie was forgotten.

Charlie's lips quivered with grieved surprise. Relinquishing his hold on the object he wailed resentfully, "It is a horrid old thing. It made you cry, and me, too."

"Charlie, dear," soothed Constance. Then she glanced up to meet the horrified stare of two accusing brown eyes. "Why--Marjorie!" she exclaimed.

"Where--where--did you get that pin?" Marjorie's soft voice sounded harsh and unnatural.

"That's what I started to tell you," faltered Constance. "Oh, it's so dreadful I can't bear to speak of it. Yet I must tell you. I--the pin----" she broke down and throwing herself on the lounge again began to cry disconsolately.

An appalling silence fell upon the shabby, music-littered room, broken only by Constance's sobs. Marjorie stood rooted to the spot. Could it be true that Constance, the girl she had fought for, the girl for whose sake she had braved cla.s.s ostracism, had deliberately stolen her pin?

Yet she must believe the evidence of her own eyes which had told her that in Charlie's hand lay her cherished pin, her lost, much-mourned-for b.u.t.terfly!

If Constance had deliberately taken the pin, then she was a thief. If she had found it, but purposely failed to return it, she was still a thief. Marjorie opened her lips to pour forth a torrent of reproaches, but the words would not come. She had a wild desire to pry open the hand which held her precious b.u.t.terfly and seize it, but her hands remained limply at her sides. It was her pin, her very own, yet she could not touch it unless Constance chose to hand it to her.

But Constance made no such proffer. Still clutching the precious b.u.t.terfly she continued to weep unrestrainedly.

Marjorie waited patiently.

Having failed hopelessly as a comforter, Charlie had hobbled to his corner, where his Christmas tree still stood, and, with that blessed forgetfulness of sorrow which childhood alone knows, had dragged forth his violin and begun a dismal screeching and sc.r.a.ping, a nerve-racking obligato to his foster sister's sobs.

Five endless minutes pa.s.sed, but Constance made no sign.

"I'm--I'm going now," choked Marjorie. Hot tears lay thick on her eyelashes. She stumbled blindly toward the door, her face averted from the girl who had so misused and abused her friendship. "Good-bye, Constance."

Something in the reproachful ring of that "Good-bye," startled Constance out of her grief. She had been too greatly overcome with her own trouble to note the effect of her tears and broken words upon Marjorie. Surely Marjorie was not angry with her for crying.

"Wait a minute, Marjorie," she called. "Please don't be angry. I won't cry any more. I want to tell you about the pin. It was----"

But only the sound of a closing door answered her. Marjorie was gone.

CHAPTER XX

THE CROWNING INJURY

Marjorie never remembered just how she reached home that afternoon. She followed the familial streets mechanically, her brain tortured with but one burning thought--Constance was a thief. Over and over the dreadful sentence repeated itself in her mind. "How could she?" was her half-sobbed whisper, as she slipped quietly into the house, and, without glancing toward the living-room, went softly upstairs to her room. She wanted to be alone. Not even her beloved captain could ease the hurt dealt her by the girl she had loved and trusted. Her mother must never know that Constance was unworthy. No one should know, but she could never, never be friends with Constance again.

With the tears running down her cheeks Marjorie took off the new fur coat she had worn so proudly that afternoon and dropped it upon the first convenient chair. Her hat followed it; then throwing herself across the bed, she gave way to uncontrolled weeping. Until that moment she had not realized how greatly she had loved this girl who had Mary's eyes of true blue, but who was so sadly lacking in Mary's fine sense of honor.

Until the afternoon light waned and the shadows began to creep upon her she lay mourning, and inconsolable. Her generous heart had been sorely wounded and she could not easily thrust aside her dreadful sense of loss; neither could she understand why Constance had partly acknowledged that she took the b.u.t.terfly pin, but had not offered to return it.

"I couldn't ask her for it," she sighed to herself, as, at last, she rose, switched on the electric light, and viewed her tear-swollen face in the mirror, "not when she had kept it all this time. She knew how dreadfully I felt over losing it, and she certainly saw the notice in the hall." A flash of resentment tinged her grief.

"I can't forgive her. I'll never forgive her. I----" Marjorie's lips began to quiver ominously. "I won't cry any more," she a.s.serted stoutly.

"My face is a sight now. Mother will ask me what the trouble is, and I don't want a soul to know. Of course, we can't go to the matinee to-morrow. We can't ever go anywhere together again." Once more the tears threatened to fall. She shut her eyes and forced them back, then went dejectedly down the hall to the bathroom to lave her flushed face and aching eyes.

By the time dinner was ready Marjorie showed no traces of her grief.

She was unusually quiet at dinner, however, and her mother inquired anxiously if she were ill.

"Did you wear your new coat this afternoon?" her father asked soberly.

"Yes, General. I went to see Constance." Marjorie tried to speak naturally.

"Ah, that accounts for it," he declared, putting on a professional air.

"Too much magnificence has struck in. You have, no doubt, a well-developed case of pride and vanity."

"I haven't a single shred of either," protested Marjorie, laughing a little at her father's tone, which was an exact imitation of their former family physician. "That sounded just like good old Doctor Bates."

"Are you and Constance going to take Charlie to the matinee to-morrow, dear?" asked her mother.

"No, Mother," returned Marjorie. Then as though determined to evade further questioning, she asked: "May I go shopping with you?"

"I wish you would. You can select the material for your new dress and the lace for that blouse I am making for you. It is so pretty. My new fashion book came to-day. I have picked out several styles of gowns for you."

"What did you pick out for me?" inquired Mr. Dean, ingenuously.

"You can't have any new clothes. Too much magnificence would strike in.

You would have, no doubt, a well-developed case of pride and vanity,"

retorted Marjorie, wickedly.

"Report at the guard house at once, for disrespectful conduct to your superior officer," ordered Mr. Dean with great severity.

"Not to-night, thank you," bowed the disobedient lieutenant, as all three rose from the table, "I'm going upstairs to my room to write a letter."

Once in her room Marjorie went to her desk and opened it with a reluctance born of the knowledge of a painful task to be performed.

Seating herself, she reached for her pen and nibbled the end soberly as she racked her brain for the best way to begin a note to Constance.

Finally she decided and wrote: