Part 7 (1/2)

”Yes?” commented Miss Berta, with an inflection so maddening that in three seconds she was fleeing for her life.

CHAPTER V

THE GIFTIE GIE US

It had been raining for a week. Berta was writing a poem, her elbows on the desk, her hair clutched in one hand, her pen in the other. At the window Robbie Belle was working happily over her curve-tracing, now and then drawing back to gaze with admiration at the sweeping lines of her problem. Once the slanting beat of the drops against the pane caught her eye, and she paused for a moment to consider their angle of incidence.

She decided that she liked curves better than angles. She did not wonder why, as Berta would have done, but having recognized the fact of preference turned placidly back to her instruments.

Splas.h.!.+ came a fiercer gust of rain, and Berta stirred uneasily, tossing her head as if striving subconsciously to shake off a vague irritation of hearing. Another heavier sound was mingling with the steady patter.

Rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub! Robbie Belle glanced up and listened, her pencil uplifted.

”It's Bea,” she said, ”she's drumming with her knuckles on the floor in the corridor. She says that it is against her principles to knock on the door when it has an engaged sign on it. Shall I say come?”

Apparently Berta did not hear the question. With her chin grasped firmly in one fist, she was staring very hard at a corner of the ceiling where there was nothing in particular. Robbie looked at her and sighed, but the resignation in the sigh was transfigured by loving awe. She picked up her pencil in patient acquiescence. Berta must not be disturbed.

”Chir-awhirr, chir-awhirr, tweet, tweet, tweet!” It was Bea's best soprano, with several extra trills strewn between the consonants. ”Listen to the mocking-bird. Oh, the mocking-bird is singing on the bough. Bravo, encore! Chir-awhirr! Encore!

”'Make me over, Mother April, When the sap begins to stir.

When thy flowery hand delivers All the mountain-prisoned rivers, And thy great heart throbs and quivers To revive the joys that were, Make me over, Mother April, When the sap begins to stir.'”

Robbie Belle was leaning back in her chair to listen in serene enjoyment.

She loved to hear Bea sing. Berta was listening, too, but with an absent expression, as if still in a dream.

The voice outside the door declared itself again. ”Ahem, written by Bliss Carmen. Sung by Beatrice Leigh. Ahem!” It was a noticeably emphatic ahem, and certainly deserved a more appreciative reply than continued silence from within. After a minute's inviting pause, the singer piped up afresh.

”'Make me over in the morning From the rag-bag of the world.

Sc.r.a.ps of deeds and duds of daring, Home-brought stuff from far-sea faring, Faded colors once so flaring, Shreds of banners long since furled, Hues of ash and hints of glory From the rag-bag of the world.' Ahem!”

The concluding cough was so successfully convulsive that Robbie Belle's mouth opened suddenly.

”It must be something important,” she said.

Berta woke up from her trance. ”Come!” she called.

At the first breath of the syllable, the door flew open with a specially prepared bang, and Bea shot in with an instantaneous and voluntary velocity that carried her to the centre of the rug.

”Oh, girls!” she exclaimed in the excited tone of a breathless and delighted messenger bringing great and astonis.h.i.+ng news, ”it's raining!”

In the ensuing stillness, she could almost hear the disgusted thud of expectation dashed to earth.

”Villain!” said Berta, and swung around to her interrupted poem.

Robbie's puzzled stare developed slowly into a smile. ”I think that is a joke,” she said.

Then Bea laughed. She collapsed on the sofa and shook from her boots to her curls. It was contagious laughter that made Robbie chuckle in sympathy and Berta grin broadly at a discreet pigeon-hole of her desk.

When the visitor resumed sufficient self-possession to enable her to enunciate, she sat up and inquired anxiously,