Polly and Her Friends Abroad Part 14

"James Osgood! What do you suppose Nolla Maynard came to Europe for? To amuse _you_ with silly-mush, or to study art and try to become experienced against the time we go into business?" fumed Polly, striding in front of Jimmy and facing him so that he had to stop short.

Eleanor was surprised at first, then she began to enjoy the encounter.

Jimmy was too amazed to answer, but he stared at Polly and her blazing eyes, as if she were an apparition.

"Well, I'll tell you something that ought to do you good!" continued Polly, cracking her fingers under Jimmy's nose. "There isn't a man outside of Colorado, who can ever touch Eleanor Maynard's heart, because she left it out there long ago! And what's more-there isn't a man like _you_, that can get one cent of American money from any girl who has sense to know what you're after! Now take yourself and your love-making off, to a girl who doesn't know better!"

The cutting scorn and fire with which Polly drove home her speech, caused Jimmy to shrink momentarily, but he also saw the glorious beauty of the girl with the flushed face, blazing eyes, and quivering form, and his impressionable heart took fire.

Polly had left him speechless, and Eleanor had hurried away to the other girls, lest she burst out laughing in sheer enjoyment of the bout between the two. But Jimmy stood lost in thought. He had never in his life, had anyone speak so to him, and never had he seen such marvellous beauty as that which Polly scintillated as she fired her sparks of fury at him.

Then he suddenly recovered and shot ahead to reach his car. He waited at the side, where one who would sit beside him, had to enter. He waved Nancy, Ruth, and Eleanor on to the back, and bowed low when Polly came up.

"Humph!" was all she granted him, and flounced along to the other seats.

Thus it happened that Angela had to sit beside her brother that day, much to the annoyance of both of them.

"What's the matter with Nolla?" whispered she, as the car started.

"Nothing. She's nice enough, but I'm going to get Polly Brewster if I have to kidnap her!" he hissed through his teeth. Meantime he made the car tear along at such a rate that the girls could hardly breathe.

"D-o-n't kill-us-in-the-me-an-time!" gasped Angela.

"Better all dead, than let her get away!"

"I al-wa-ys kn-ew you-had co-ot-tton wh-ere br-rains ought-to-be-e--" Angela managed to jerk forth.

Jimmy made no reply to this stigma but tore along the road until a constable arrested him. That calmed him somewhat, for he had to pay a fine, and it took all the money Mrs. Alexander had recently given him.

When the second car caught up with Jimmy's, Mr. Alexander shouted gleefully: "That was some race, Jimmy, old boy! I used to eat up the road that way, in Colorado, but they won't stand for it over here, will they?"

As Jimmy had just transferred his little roll of bills from his pocket, to the constable's hand, he grunted and started on slowly.

Mr. Fabian called out, however: "You rushed past all the towns I had planned to stop at and explore. Now shall we go back!"

"No, never mind, Prof! let's get back to London and end this awful trip!" shouted Polly, anxiously.

Her friends laughed, but the tourists in the second car could not understand why the drive was so awful to Polly.

At Penrith the travellers stopped, as they planned to go cross country to visit some fine old places located at Ripon. And they also wished to visit York, which was a few miles from Penrith.

That night, the moment Jimmy was washed and brushed, he took up his post at the foot of the stairs where the girls would have to come down. One after another of the party descended but Polly failed to appear. Eleanor smiled and took his arm to lure him away, but he shook off her hand just as a petulant child might.

Still smiling, Eleanor walked away and joined her friends in the parlor.

Soon after that, they went to the dining-room for dinner, leaving Jimmy still on guard waiting for Polly.

It was a merry party that enjoyed dinner that evening, but Jimmy took no interest in it, as he still watched for the coming of his lady-as he called her to himself. During a lull in the conversation in the dining-room, Jimmy distinctly heard a voice telling of exploits in the Rocky Mountains, when Eleanor spent the Summer at Pebbly Pit.

Jimmy started! It was Polly's own voice! But how did she get down while he stood watching so carefully?

He hurried to the door of the room and looked in. There she sat, entertaining the whole a.s.sembly, with her stories-and he had been left out in the hall all that time! He could have wept!

When he took a seat at the table, everyone expressed the deepest concern for him. "Was he ill?" "Did he feel badly about the fine for speeding?"

and many other questions to which he gave no reply.

When they left the room, Jimmy jumped up also, and just as Polly was leaving, he caught her hand.

"Won't you let me see you alone this evening-please?"

Polly lifted her head a bit higher-if that were possible-and deigned to glance at him. "What for?" snapped she.

"I-I want to tell you-oh, just give me a moment!"

"Very well-one moment right here! Let the others leave."

"No-no, not in this public room. Somewhere where I can speak--"

begged Jimmy.

"Here or nowhere!"

"Oh, Polly, Polly! Why are you so cruel?" began Jimmy, as he forced a look of agony into his eyes.

"Come now-that will do from you, little boy! If that is what you have to say, then just keep it. I've no time to throw away," said Polly, in a voice like steel, and then she drew aside her dress and walked away.

Jimmy stood disconsolate, wis.h.i.+ng he dared commit suicide before her eyes, and make her repent those unkind words. But he was awfully hungry, and he thought better of suicide so he went back to finish his late dinner.

Eleanor saw him, later, as he left the dining-room and, with the imp of mischief uppermost in her mind, waylaid him and spent the evening talking of nothing but Polly-her beauty, her accomplishments, and her tremendous wealth that no one as yet, had been able to compute.

Had Jimmy any doubt of who his soul-mate was, before, that talk settled it. He was now determined to have Polly, even if he had to steal her and keep her locked up until she consented to his offer of marriage.

The farce now amused everyone but Angela and Mrs. Alexander. Jimmy was so openly wild about Polly that he acted like a possessed idiot rather than a young man with a grain of sense. If Polly had fawned upon him, he might have wearied of her company, but because she scorned him so heartily and showed it plainly, he felt all the more attracted to her.

Mrs. Alexander snubbed Polly whenever she scorned Jimmy; and Angela made much of the lady because she showed her partisans.h.i.+p for the young man, so openly. Thus the two, Angela and Mrs. Alexander came closer together because of the common bond-Jimmy.

When Mr. Fabian suggested that all go to see the Minster of York, Angela and Mrs. Alexander refused. Jimmy saw the look Polly cast at him, and murmured something about drowning his sorrow. But he failed to say whether it would be in the river or in home-brew.

They viewed the ancient place and Mr. Fabian remarked: "It was here that the greatest disaster that ever befell man occurred in 306 A.D."

"Why, I never heard of it-what was it?" asked Mr. Ashby.

"Perhaps you, like many others, never thought of it as a disaster,"

replied Mr. Fabian. "Because I speak of the proclamation issued here by the Romans, that made Constantine an Emperor in 306. This emperor, understanding the tremendous advantages of a political nature, if he could gain full power and control of the religion that was gaining such an ascendancy with the people-the Christ Truth that healed the sick, cured sin, and raised the very dead, as it _did_ until three hundred years after Jesus ascended-bribed a few of the disloyal Christians to act in concord with him.

"For the reward of place and power conceded to them, the unscrupulous Christians sold out their faith and brethren to this Emperor. He, wily and crafty in diplomacy and politics, sent out word, far and wide, that Christianity would thenceforth be protected by him.

"In this place, that proclamation was hailed with a great celebration, and Christianity became the ruling religion here. But the power of the Spirit, as used by Christ Jesus, vanished when pomp and politics supplanted it, and soon the gift of healing was lost until recent years."

"That is very interesting, Fabian," said Mr. Ashby, while the girls listened to this unusual information, eagerly. "I have sometimes wondered why it was that the power demonstrated by Christ Jesus could not have been used by his followers."

"It was, you see, until Constantine misused the gift. All such who use it for place or power will lose it," said Mr. Fabian, earnestly.