Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/277

“I don’t want your Parkman,” she said, contemptuously. “But there is one thing you must do. You will confess to Aunt Ruth that it was you who drew that moustache on my face the day of the English exam and not Ilse.”

Evelyn wiped away her tears and swallowed something.

“That was only a joke,” she sobbed.

“It was no joke to lie about it,” said Emily, sternly.

“You're so—so—blunt.” Evelyn looked for a dry spot on her handkerchief and found one. “It was all a joke. I just ran back from the Shoppe to do it. I thought, of course, you'd look in the glass when you got up. I d-didn’t suppose you’d g-go to class like that. And I didn’t know your Aunt took it so seriously. Of course—I'll tell her—if you’ll—if you'll———”

“Write it out and sign it,” said Emily, remorselessly.

Evelyn wrote it out and signed it.

“You'll give me—that,” she pleaded, with an entreating gesture towards the scrapbook leaf.

“Oh, no, I’ll keep this,” said Emily.

“And what assurance have I that you won’t tell—some day—after all?k"9 sniffed Evelyn.

“You have the word of a Starr,” said Emily, loftily.

She went out with a smile. She had finally conquered in the long duel. And she held in her hand what would finally clear Ilse in Aunt Ruth’s eyes.

Aunt Ruth sniffed a good deal over Evelyn’s note and was inclined to ask questions as to how it had been extorted. But not getting much satisfaction out of Emily on this score and knowing that Allan Burnley had been sore at her ever since her banishment of his daughter, she secretly welcomed an excuse to recall it.

“Very well, then. I told you Ilse could come here when you could prove to my satisfaction that she had not played that trick on you. You have proved it, and I keep my word. I am a just woman,” concluded Aunt Ruth—who was, perhaps, the most unjust woman on the earth at that time.

So far, well. But if Evelyn wanted revenge she tasted