Perkins to seek
revenge in the only way possible--by confidentially relating to divers
individuals during that evening the Granville episode in the new
teacher's career. At least, Hazel guessed he must have told the tale
of that ambiguously worded bequest and the subsequent gossip, for as
early as the next day she caught certain of Jim Briggs' boarders
looking at her with an interest they had not heretofore displayed--or,
rather, it should be said, with a _different_ sort of interest. They
were discussing her. She could not know it positively, but she felt it.
The feeling grew to certainty after Perkins' departure that day. There
was a different atmosphere. Probably, she reflected, he had thrown in
a few embellishments of his own for good measure. She felt a tigerish
impulse to choke him. But she was proud, and she carried her head in
the air, and, in effect, told Cariboo Meadows to believe as it pleased
and act as it pleased. They could do no more than cut her and cause
her to lose her school. She managed to keep up an air of cool
indifference that gave no hint of the despairing protest that surged
close to the surface. Individually and collectively, she reiterated to
herself, she despised men.
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