Part 2 (1/2)
”Bea!” she answered, ”I am going to give a tea for my Aunt Sarah. Do you think Sue Merriam will come if I invite her?”
CHAPTER II
ENTER ROBBIE BELLE
Now it happened one evening in the early fall, while Bea and Lila were learning to live together, that the Students' a.s.sociation held a meeting to appoint corridor wardens for the year.
In the throng that came pouring out of chapel afterward, Bea, who had an eel-like rapidity in gliding through crowds, found herself at the doors some yards in advance of Lila. Halting to wait in the vestibule, she overheard a junior instructing a new freshman officer in her duties.
”It is very simple. Oh, no, Miss Sanders, no, indeed! There is nothing meddlesome about it. You're not expected to spy upon the girls in your neighborhood. The aim is merely to preserve a certain degree of quiet.
Girls are often thoughtless about being noisy in the corridors. Simply remind them now and then in flagrant cases that they are disturbing those who wish to study. Of course you must be tactful, though it is rarely that a student wilfully disregards the rights of others.”
Bea peered around the edge of her particular door in order to catch a glimpse of this freshman so distinguished. It was the tall, fair-faced child with the splendid long braid, who lived at the end of Berta's transverse. Now the sweet mouth was drooping disconsolately, and the big eyes looked dewy with anxious tears.
”I--I don't think I'd like to,” she said.
”Oh, but it is something that must be done, and you have been selected as the one in that vicinity who strikes us as best fitted for the duties of the position. It is really, you know, a case of public service. Every one at some time or other ought to be willing to make sacrifices of personal desires for the good of the community, don't you think? But forgive me for preaching. I didn't mean to. By the way, how do you like college, Miss Sanders?”
”It isn't so much fun as I had expected,” said she. Bea's head popped around the door again. The junior was smiling with an air of amused superiority.
”Ah, yes, I understand. Probably you used to have a sister or cousin at college, and from her letters you supposed that the life was composed chiefly of dancing, fudges and basket-ball with a little work sandwiched in between. Is it not so? And now----”
”I don't mind the work,” here Bea's head popped out a third time to contemplate this interesting cla.s.smate, ”but----”
”Beatrice,” called Lila at her other ear, ”Berta says to hurry or we'll miss the best of the fun. It's to be a sheet-and-pillow-case party to-morrow, and a lot of the girls are coming in to learn how to do the draping. Berta has an idea. Come along quick!”
Robbie Belle Sanders stared after them wistfully. ”Those girls live near me,” she said, ”they have fun all the time.”
The junior's keen glance spied in the open countenance something that kept her lingering a moment longer. ”This is a democratic place,” she said in a more sympathetic tone, ”every girl finds her own level sooner or later. The basis is not money or social rank of the families at home.
It is not brains or clothes or stuff like that. It is simply that the same kind of girls drift together. They're congenial. It seems to be a law. A general law, you understand. Of course,” she hesitated for an instant before being spurred on by her sense of scrupulous honesty, ”there are exceptions. Once in a while a girl fails to find her special niche. Maybe she rooms off the campus and is not thrown in contact with her own kind. She may be abnormally shy--that hinders her from making friends. Or perhaps she does something that queers herself first thing.”
”Queers herself?” echoed Robbie Belle, ”how does a person queer herself?”
”Oh, I don't know.” She paused to reflect. ”She does outlandish things.
And still it isn't what she does so much as what she is. Her acts express her character. If her character is queer, she behaves queerly, and the others fight shy of her. After all, I dare say she does find her own level, and there is n.o.body else there. So she goes along solitary through the four years.”
Robbie Belle looked frightened. ”I wish I knew what things are queer,”
she said.
”Oh, being different from the other girls, for instance, awfully different, so different that everybody notices it. Not just original, you know, but actually queer. Watch the girls, particularly those who always go around alone, and you'll learn. Good-night, Miss Sanders. I must congratulate you again on the honor of being appointed freshman warden.
Good-night.”
Robbie Belle walked slowly down the corridor to her room. ”I wonder if I am queer,” she thought. ”I am almost always alone.” She halted before a door that displayed a small square of white paper pinned in the middle of its upper half. Robbie Belle, her hand on the k.n.o.b, regarded the sign hopelessly. ”If you have a roommate who never takes down her ENGAGED, and she doesn't like company and she won't go anywhere with you herself, maybe you can't help being queer.”
Robbie Belle entered softly. It was a large room and seemed quite bare because of the absence of curtains, rugs, and cus.h.i.+ons. The unsociable roommate was sitting beside the centre table, her elbows propped on its s.h.i.+ny surface that was innocent of any cover and ignorant of the duster.
A green shade over her eyes connected a blur of nondescript hair with a rather long nose beneath which a pair of pale lips in the glow of the drop-light was rapidly gabbling over some lines in Greek scansion.