“You were rather flush of cash that day,” commented Ingred.
“Yes, the fact is I’d been writing a short story, and it had been accepted by a newspaper. It’s a poor enough thing, and I didn’t sign my own name to it. I didn’t want to tell them at home I was trying to write until I could do something better. Anyhow, I’d just cashed the check, and thought I’d give you a treat for once. I knew it was no use to explain to Father. Mother has stuck up for me, but I can tell you I’ve been having a time of it this last fortnight.”
“But, Egbert,” said Ingred, frankly puzzled, “couldn’t you have got Miss Bertrand to tell Dad where you were? It would have been better after all than letting him think you took the money.”
Egbert’s face darkened again tragically.
“I wouldn’t appeal to Miss Bertrand to clear my character if it were a charge of murder. I’d be hanged first! I met her the very day after we were in the Abbey together—she was walking with some idiot of an airman—and she stared straight in my face and cut me. I’ve done with girls! They’re all of them alike!” and the gloomy young misanthrope picked up the spanner and began energetically tightening nuts on the motorcycle.
Ingred shook a sympathetic head. She had not much experience in love affairs, but she fancied that this one did not go very deep.
“You’ll get over it,” she consoled. “And she wasn’t a very nice girl, anyway. Queenie always loathed her. If Dad’s had his nap, I’ll go and tell him how I saw you in the Abbey. I know it was a Tuesday, because I’d had my music lesson, and was taking the books that Dr. Linton left behind him.”
“Good! That’s what’s called proving an alibi. I don’t know who walked off with those notes, but as long as Dad’s satisfied I had nothing to do with it, that’s all I care. He can thrash it out with the clerks now, or leave it alone.”
Mr. Saxon questioned Ingred closely, but accepted her account of the matter, which set his doubts at rest concerning his son. The relief in the family circle was enormous. Mother’s face was beaming, and it seemed as if the storm-clouds had blown away, and the sun had shone out. Tea was the most comfortable meal that the household had taken together for a fortnight.
“I haven’t spent quite all that check I got from the Harlow Weekly News,” whispered Egbert to Ingred that evening, “and I’m going to buy you a box of chocolates on Monday. I’ll leave them for you at the Hostel. You deserve them!”
“You mascot! I can’t quite see that I do deserve them, for I really meant to rag you about that Abbey business. But I won’t say ‘No, thank you!’ to chocks! Rather not! We’ll have a gorgeous little private feast in No. 2 tomorrow night.”
XVI
An Easter Pilgrimage
The thirteen weeks between Christmas and Easter dragged much more slowly than those of the autumn term. The weather was cold and variable. As fast as Spring stirred in the earth, Winter seemed to stretch forth chilly fingers to check her advent. Nature, like a careful mother, kept the buds tightly folded on the trees and the yellow daffodil blossoms securely hidden under their green casement curtains. Only the most foolhardy birds ventured to begin building operations. The rooks in the elm trees near the Abbey had begun to repair their nests during a mild spurt in January, then put off further alterations till late in March. Morning after morning the girls would wake to find the roofs covered with hoar frost. Ingred, who hated the cold, shivered as she crossed the windy quadrangle from the college to the hostel, and congratulated herself that she lived in the days of modern comforts.
“How the old monks and nuns managed to exist in those wretched chilly damp cloisters I can’t imagine,” she said, as she squatted by the stove warming her hands. “Were they allowed to take hot bricks to bed with them in their cells? Think of turning out for midnight services into an unwarmed church! It sounds absolutely miserable!”
“Perhaps they made themselves more comfortable than we think,” commented Verity. “One of them probably kept up the fire and doled out hot drinks after the services. It might even have been possible to take a hot-water bottle to church under the folds of those ample habits.”
“I don’t believe that would have been allowed. Surely the cold was part of the discipline.”
“I shouldn’t have been a nun if I’d lived in the Middle Ages,” said Fil. “I’d have wanted to go to the tournaments and to have seen my knight fighting with my ribbons in his helmet and bringing me the crown. Oh, wouldn’t it have been fun? Life’s not a scrap romantic nowadays. I do think men are slackers. Why don’t they wear their ladies’ colors at football, and let whoever gets a goal carry a wreath of flowers to the pavilion and crown his girl ‘Queen of Beauty’? There’d be some excitement in looking on then. As it is it’s nothing but a scrimmage; and I never care a button which side wins. You needn’t laugh. Why shouldn’t a footballer look gallant and present trophies? The world would jog on a great deal better if there were more chivalry in it.”
“The girls want to play games themselves nowadays instead of looking on and receiving trophies,” giggled Verity.
“I don’t!” declared Fil emphatically. “I hate tearing about at hockey, or running at cricket. I’d far rather let my knight do the work for me.”
“Chilly work looking on in this weather. The games keep one warm,” said Ingred, who was still
