LARIC did go to the mainland the next morning, and brought back a great surprise for me; a letter from Daddy! It had been hastily written on board the Bosnia, and sent back with the pilot
My eyes filled, and a lump came into my throat. Dear Daddy! How he remembered my lightest word! Two months before, in his office, I had simply raved about the most adorable Pekinese, a prize winner at the dog show, but he didn't buy it for me because of course I could not have kept it at Miss Farmingdale's. He hadn't forgotten, though. I smiled back as I thought of the time he would probably have getting it back to America.
"What is it, Maida?" asked Aunt Julie. "You are smiling all to yourself."
"I have a letter from Daddy," I replied. "Just a note, written on shipboard. He's going to bring me a dog."
"You'll be sorry. They're an awful nuisance," Bijou observed. "Do you know I heard one barking last night."
"You must have been dreaming," returned Aunt Julie. "There isn't a dog on the island."
I knew better, of course, but I didn't look at Monsieur Pelissier. I was rather sure that he knew, too.
"Say, I've got something to tell you." Alaric spoke to us all, but his eyes met his mother's. "There's somebody in that Barford bungalow."
"Impossible!" Aunt Julie exclaimed. "You know it hasn't been occupied for years."
"Well, it is now. I cruised down that way a little and I saw smoke coming out of the chimney, and there's a launch tied up at the dock."
"Good Heavens, the Barfords can't have returned!" There was something very like consternation in her voice, and I glanced quickly at her. She had turned very white, and the opened letter which she held in her hand trembled.
"Oh, no!" I cried, thoughtlessly. "Not the Barfords!"
The very next moment I saw what I had done, but it was too late.
"I—I have seen a young man there, with a dog," I replied confusedly. "I don't believe there is anyone else about the place."
"How is it that Mademoiselle knows this young man is not a Barford?" Monsieur Pelissier's voice was very calm, but there was a peculiar glint in his eyes. "You have perhaps talked with him, flirted with him, eh?"
"I believe she has!" cried Bijou suddenly, with a jangling, unpleasant laugh. "No wonder she slips away by herself all the time! You're slick, Maida!"
"I most certainly have not flirted with him!" I returned hotly. "I have spoken to him casually. I am surprised at your daring to use such a tone to me, Monsieur!"
"And I am surprised at you, Maida!" Aunt Julie cried. Her voice was cold and cuttingly distinct, and the lisp was gone. "Who is this man you have picked up?"
"He is a—friend of the Barfords, to whom they have lent their bungalow for a time," I stammered. I was on the verge of tears in my shame and disgust at their attitude, but some instinct warned me not to disclose Gilbert's identity. "And I didn't pick him up, Aunt Julie, not in the way you suggest. There was no harm whatever in my speaking to him. I have done nothing wrong."
"Nothing wrong? You wretched, low-bred little hussy! How dare you scrape acquaintance with a strange man!"
"Mother! Control yourself!" Lorna's voice in sharp command fell upon my stunned ears. "Maida meant, I am sure, to do nothing out of the way. How often have you seen him, talked with him?" she added, turning to me. "He knows who you are, of course?"
"No, he does not know who I am!" I retorted passionately. "And I decline to answer any more of your questions! I will not stand here and be catechised like a naughty ! I have done nothing that I should not do, nothing that my father would object to, and I am not accountable to any of you for my actions."
"I'll show you whether you are or not!" Aunt Julie screamed, beside herself with rage. "You stuck-up, sanctimonious little brat! You'll find out before you're through with me that you're very much accountable to me for what you do! The idea! Sneaking out of here so innocently every day with your book, and carrying on a flirtation under my very nose with a perfect stranger! It takes you sly ones to be up to something devilish the first chance you get! You're not dealing with your Miss Farmingdale, now, and pulling the wool over her eyes—or your father either! I'll see that you have precious little opportunity in the future to go about philandering with a strange man, you deceitful, unprincipled girl!"
Lorna tried to interrupt her torrent of abuse, but she turned upon them all in a fury.