Part 9 (1/2)
”It is queer that she did not wait longer,” commented Berta wonderingly.
”She said it would be more whimsical and unexpected to stroll off in that eccentric way. She explained how she is being made over, Mother April, from the rag-bag of the world; and so she has to be different.”
”I hope that she gets very wet indeed,” said Berta, ”and I don't see why I should worry.”
Robbie's voice answered, ”Bea worried about you that day last fall when you went off alone in that storm to find fringed gentians. The branches were cras.h.i.+ng down in the wind, and one girl had seen a tramp out on that lonely road. You said you could take care of yourself, but we worried.”
”Oh, that was different,” exclaimed Berta. ”I am perfectly capable of judging for myself. But Bea is such a scatterbrain that I can't help feeling”--she hesitated, then added as if to herself, ”There isn't any sense in feeling responsible. She is old enough----”
”I can't hear when you mumble,” called Robbie.
”Bea is an awful idiot,” replied Berta in a louder key. ”Did you catch that valuable bit of information, Robbie Belle?”
”It sounds,” spoke Robbie with unexpected astuteness, ”as if you are really worrying after all.”
”Does it?” groaned Berta; ”well, then I am an idiot too.”
She sternly refused to look anxious even when the dressing-gong found the wanderer still absent in the rain. At six Berta started for the dining-room, leaving Robbie hovering at Bea's open door with a supply of hot water, rough towels, dry stockings, and spirits of camphor. In the leaden twilight of the lower corridor a draggled figure pa.s.sed with a sodden drip of heavy skirts and the dull squas.h.i.+ng of water in soaked shoes.
”Where are the apple-blossoms?” asked Berta in polite greeting as they met at the elevator.
”I've b-b-b-been studying b-b-b-bobolinks,” Bea's teeth chattered. ”It's original to follow birds in the rain.”
”But”--Berta's eyes snapped, ”I myself when I did it I wore a gym suit and a mackintosh and rubber boots. Of all the idiots!”
”'O wad some power the giftie gie us,'” chanted Bea's tongue between clicks,
”'To see oursels as ithers see us, It wad fra mony a blunder free us, And foolish notion.'”
Then as Berta took a threatening step in her direction, she broke into a run. ”I think I'll take some exercise now,” she called back mockingly as she fled up the stairs.
At midnight Berta was roused wide awake by an insistent rapping on the wall between her room and Bea's. Startled at last wide awake, she asked what was the trouble. Upon receiving no audible reply, she hurried around through the corridor to the door. She heard the key turned as she grasped the k.n.o.b. An instant later she felt Bea sway against her and stand choking for breath, her hands to her chest.
”It's croup,” she gasped. ”The doctor! Run!”
Berta ran. She ran as she had never run before. Down the endless corridor and up the stairs, two steps at a time. Then a hail of frantic knocks on the doctor's door brought her rus.h.i.+ng to answer. In four minutes they were back beside Bea's bed, and the doctor's orders kept Berta flying, till after a limitless s.p.a.ce of horror and struggle she heard dimly from the distance: ”She'll do now.” Whereupon Berta sat down quietly in a chair and fainted.
The next day was Sunday. Berta carried Bea her breakfast.
”Good-morning, Beatrice,” she said. ”I've decided that I am tired of being a genius.”
”So am I,” said Bea.
”No more poems!” cried Robbie Belle and clapped her hands. ”Oh, goodie!”
CHAPTER VI
A WAVE OF REFORM