"No, I think I"ve fought that all out."
"That"s good! Youth is not the time for tears."
"But I have just come from a regular downpour."
"It sounded like a downfall. I was in Madame de Cartier"s room, just underneath. We thought the ceiling was coming through."
"Oh, I"m so sorry. I am afraid it was my fault. Those children were so horribly homesick that I suggested a game."
"That was very thoughtful, I am sure. Some of those young girls really suffer terribly. Sometimes it makes them quite ill."
Blue Bonnet wondered why Fraulein could not have been so reasonable.
_She_ certainly was disagreeable. She wished Carita might be under Mrs.
White"s wing. What a dear Mrs. White was, anyway.
Blue Bonnet opened her bedroom door, still lost in thought. The early winter twilight filled the room, almost obscuring her room-mate who sat near a window straining her eyes over a book.
Blue Bonnet snapped on the light.
"You"ll ruin your eyes," she said pleasantly. "That"s what my aunt always says to me when I read in the twilight."
Joy forced a half smile and continued reading.
"I suppose we get dressed for dinner now?" Blue Bonnet, ventured, beginning to unfasten her waist.
"Yes."
"Is dinner just at six?"
"Yes."
"What do we do in the meantime?"
"Study--or practise; or read, if you wish."
Blue Bonnet went into the bathroom and made as much of her toilet as was possible. When she came out, Joy was still poring over her book.
"That must be a hard lesson you are getting," Blue Bonnet remarked.
"It"s a book I"m reading."
"Oh!"
There was an interval of silence during which Blue Bonnet put the finishing touches to her toilet. When she was quite dressed she stood hesitatingly by one of the windows, gazing out over the brightly lighted city. Suddenly she turned and flew down the hall, knocking softly at number fifteen.
The door opened slightly and Annabel peered out.
"May I come in--please? I"m threatened with a terrible attack of--the blues, I reckon."
Annabel pulled her in quickly.
"Surely," she said, "only hurry. This isn"t strictly according to Hoyle."
"You mean it"s against the rules?"
Annabel nodded, her mouth full of pins.
"Then I"d better go."
"Nonsense, stay where you are! I was dying for some one to hook me up.
Ruth"s in the tub--been there an hour. If you hear any one coming, step in the closet."
"I shouldn"t have come only I knew I was going to be homesick, and--"
"And Joy wasn"t a very good antidote, was she?"
"Hardly. She won"t talk."
Annabel laughed.
"You"ll have to do what Sue did last year. That awful silence got on her nerves. Not that she was so anxious to hear Joy talk, but she got tired of putting forth all the effort. Well, she got somebody to make out a list of subjects on a typewriter. She gave it to Joy. "Now," she said, "for goodness sake, _talk_. Choose, in any order you like, but _talk_!""
Blue Bonnet laughed merrily.
"Ssh!" Annabel warned. "You mustn"t do anything more than breathe during this hour."
Blue Bonnet got up again.
Annabel pushed her back in the chair.
"Sit still," she said.
"What would they do if they found me?"
"That depends upon who found you. If it were the German lady above--"
"Fraulein?"
"Yes."
"Has she anything to do with this floor?"
"There isn"t anything in the school that she hasn"t something to do with."
"And if it were Mrs. White?"
"Mrs. White would do her duty. She would send you to your room--and you"d go--a heap quicker than you would for Fraulein."