Out on this floor a railing ran round the curve of the stairway. Girls were sitting on it, smoking cigarettes, and kicking their slipper-shod feet. Their partners were lounging close. Lane pa.s.sed by, and walking to a window in the shadow he stood there. Presently one of the boys threw away his cigarette and said: "Come on, Ironsides. I gotta dance.

You're a rotten dancer, but I love you."

They ran back into the hall. The young fellow who was left indolently attempted to kiss his partner, who blew smoke in his face. Then at a louder blast of jazz they bounced away. The next moment a third couple appeared, probably from another door down the hall. They did not observe Lane. The girl was slim, dainty, gorgeously arrayed, and her keen, fair face bore traces of paint wet by perspiration. Her companion was Captain Vane Thesel, in citizen's garb, well-built, ruddy-faced, with tiny curled moustache.

"Hurry, kid," he said, breathlessly, as he pulled at her. "We'll run down and take a spin."

"Spiffy! But let's wait till after the next," she replied. "It's Harold's and I came with him."

"Tell him it was up to him to find you."

"But he might get wise to a car ride."

"He'd do the same. Come on," returned Thesel, who all the time was leading her down the stairway step by step.

They disappeared. From the open window Lane saw them go down the street and get into a car and ride away. He glanced at his watch, muttering. "This is a new stunt for dances. I just wonder." He watched, broodingly and sombrely. It was not his sister, but it might just as well have been. Two dances and a long intermission ended before Lane saw the big auto return. He watched the couple get out, and hurry up, to disappear at the entrance. Then Lane changed his position, and stood directly at the head of the stairway under the light. He had no interest in Captain Vane Thesel. He just wanted to get a close look at the girl.

Presently he heard steps, heavy and light, and a man's deep voice, a girl's low thrill of laughter. They turned the curve in the stairway and did not see Lane until they had mounted to the top.

With cool steady gaze Lane studied the girl. Her clear eyes met his.

If there was anything unmistakable in Lane's look at her, it was not from any deception on his part. He tried to look into her soul. Her smile--a strange indolent little smile, remnant of excitement--faded from her face. She stared, and she put an instinctive hand up to her somewhat dishevelled hair. Then she pa.s.sed on with her companion.

"Of all the nerve!" she exclaimed. "Who's that soldier b.o.o.b?"

Lane could not catch the low reply. He lingered there a while longer, and then returned to the hall, much surprised to find it so dark he could scarcely distinguish the dancers. The lights had been lowered.

If the dance had been violent and strange before this procedure, it was now a riot. In the semi-darkness the dancers cut loose. The paper strings had been loosened and had fallen down to become tangled with the flying feet and legs. Confetti swarmed like dark snowdrops in the hot air. Lane actually smelled the heat of bodies--a strangely stirring and yet noxious sensation. A rushing, murmuring, shrill sound--voices, laughter, cries, and the sliding of feet and brushing of gowns--filled the hall--ominous to Lane's over-sensitive faculties, swelling unnaturally, the expression of unrestrained physical abandon.

Lane walked along the edge of this circling, wrestling melee, down to the corner where the orchestra held forth. They seemed actuated by the same frenzy which possessed the dancers. The piccolo player lay on his back on top of the piano, piping his shrill notes at the ceiling. And Lane made sure this player was drunk. On the moment then the jazz came to an end with a crash. The lights flashed up. The dancers clapped and stamped their pleasure.

Lane wound his way back to Blair.

"I've had enough, Blair," he said. "I'm all in. Let's go."

"Right-o," replied Blair, with evident relief. He reached a hand to Lane to raise himself, an action he rarely resorted to, and awkwardly got his crutch in place. They started out, with Lane accommodating his pace to his crippled comrade. Thus it happened that the two ran a gauntlet with watching young people on each side, out to the open part of the hall. There directly in front they encountered Captain Vane Thesel, with Helen Wrapp on his arm. Her red hair, her green eyes, and carmined lips, the white of her voluptuous neck and arms, united in a singular effect of allurement that Lane felt with scorn and melancholy.

Helen nodded to Blair and Lane, and evidently dragged at her escort's arm to hold him from pa.s.sing on.

"Look who's here! Daren, old boy--and Blair," she called, and she held the officer back. The malice in her green glance did not escape Lane, as he bowed to her. She gloried in that situation. Captain Thesel had to face them.

It was Blair's hand that stiffened Lane. They halted, erect, like statues, with eyes that failed to see Thesel. He did not exist for them. With a flush of annoyance he spoke, and breaking from Helen, pa.s.sed on. A sudden silence in the groups nearby gave evidence that the incident had been observed. Then whispers rose.

"Boys, aren't you dancing?" asked Helen, with a mocking sweetness.

"Let me teach you the new steps."

"Thanks, Helen," replied Lane, in sudden weariness. "But I couldn't go it."

"Why did you come? To blow us up again? Lose your nerve?"

"Yes, I lost it to-night--and something more."

"Blair, you shouldn't have left one of your legs in France," she said, turning to Blair. She had always hated Blair, a fact omnipresent now in her green eyes.

Blair had left courtesy and endurance in France, as was evinced by the way he bent closer to Helen, to speak low, with terrible pa.s.sion.

"If I had it to do over again--I'd see _you_ and _your_ kind--your dirt-cheap crowd of painted hussies where you belong--in the clutch of the Huns!"

CHAPTER IX

Miss Amanda Hill, teacher in the Middleville High School, sat wearily at her desk. She was tired, as tired as she had ever been on any day of the fifteen long years in which she had wrestled with the problems of school life. Her hair was iron gray and she bent a worn, sad, severe face over a ma.s.s of notes before her.

At that moment she was laboring under a perplexing question that was not by any means a new one. Only this time it had presented itself in a less insidious manner than usual, leaving no loophole for charitable imagination. Presently she looked up and rapped on her desk.

"These young ladies will remain after school is dismissed," she said, in her authoritative voice: "Bessy Bell--Rose Clymer--Gail Matthews--Helen Tremaine--Ruth Winthrop.... Also any other girls who are honest enough to admit knowledge of the notes found in Rose Clymer's desk."

The hush that fell over the schoolroom was broken by the gong in the main hall, sounding throughout the building. Then followed the noise of shutting books and closing desks, and the bustle and shuffling of antic.i.p.ated dismissal.

In a front seat sat a girl who did not arise with the others, and as one by one several girls pa.s.sed her desk with hurried step and embarra.s.sed snicker she looked at them with purple, blazing eyes.

Miss Hill attended to her usual task with the papers of the day's lessons and the marking of the morrow's work before she glanced up at the five girls she had detained. They sat in widely separated sections of the room. Rose Clymer, pretty, fragile, curly-haired, occupied the front seat of the end row. Her face had no color and her small mouth was set in painful lines. Four seats across from her Bessy Bell leaned on her desk, with defiant calmness, and traces of scorn still in her expressive eyes. Gail Matthews looked frightened and Helen Tremaine was crying. Ruth Winthrop bent forward with her face buried in her arms.

"Girls," began Miss Hill, presently. "I know you regard me as a cross old schoolteacher."

She had spoken impulsively, a rare thing with her, and occasioned in this instance by the painful consciousness of how she was judged, when she was really so kindly disposed toward the wayward girls.

"Girls, I've tried to get into close touch with you, to sympathize, to be lenient; but somehow, I've failed," she went on. "Certainly I have failed to stop this note-writing. And lately it has become--beyond me to understand. Now won't you help me to get at the bottom of the matter? Helen, it was you who told me these notes were in Rose's desk.

Have you any knowledge of more?"

"Ye--s--m," said Helen, raising her red face. "I've--I've one--I--was afraid to g--give up."

"Bring it to me."

Helen rose and came forward with an expressive little fist and opening it laid a crumpled paper upon Miss Hill's desk. As Helen returned to her seat she met Bessy Bell's fiery glance and it seemed to wither her.

The teacher smoothed out the paper and began to read. "Good Heavens!"

she breathed, in amaze and pain. Then she turned to Helen. "This verse is in your handwriting."

"Yes'm--but I--I only copied it," responded the culprit.

"Who gave you the original?"

"Rose."

"Where did she get it?"

"I--I don't know--Miss Hill. Really and tru--truly I don't," faltered Helen, beginning to cry again.

Gail and Ruth also disclaimed any knowledge of the verse, except that it had been put into their hands by Rose. They had read it, copied it, written notes about it and discussed it.