Part 23 (1/2)

She darted across to her companion and seized her arm without noticing the quiver of distaste before it lay limp in her eager grasp.

”Oh, oh, it is, it certainly is! You are peeling. You will get through first and be set free and go back to the girls. I shall be left here alone. It isn't fair. We both came the same day. Think of almost six weeks lost from college! My first spring in this beautiful place! It doesn't mean so much to you, because you're a junior. You don't care.”

Lila had withdrawn her hand under the pretext of picking up a case knife to sharpen her pencil. Now though her lids were lowered as she hacked at the stubby point, she was perfectly aware of the hopeful curiosity in the freshman's side glance at her. Lila despised the habit of side glances.

For the past few days she had felt increasing scorn of a childishness that sought to vary by quarrels the monotony of their imprisonment.

Hadn't the girl learned yet that she--Lila Allan, president of the junior literary society--was not to be provoked into any undignified dispute by puerile taunts?

”You don't care,” repeated Ellen from her old position at the window. ”I guess you'd rather anyhow have all your time to write poetry instead of studying.” She glanced around just in time to see Lila's lips set in a grimmer line as the lead in the short pencil snapped beneath a more impatient jab of the dull knife. She laughed teasingly.

”What's the use of writing all that stuff now? You're wearing out your pencil fast. Aren't you afraid the paper will carry infection? Or will it be fumigated? I think it is silly to bother about germs. Oh, dear!” She began to drum again on the pane. ”I'm so tired of this infirmary. There's nothing to do. I can't make up poetry. My eyes ache if I try to read.”

Here she paused, and Lila was aware of another side glance in her direction.

”My eyes ache if I try to read,” repeated Ellen slowly, ”and there is an awfully interesting story over on the table.” She stopped her drumming for a moment to listen to the steady scribble behind her. The little face with its round features so unlike Lila's delicate outlines took on a disconsolate expression. ”Do your eyes ache when you try to read,” for an instant she hesitated while a mischievous spark of daring danced into her eyes. Then she added explosively, ”Lila?”

She had done it. She had done it at last. Never before through all the weeks of imprisonment together had she ventured to call Miss Allan by her first name. A delightful tingle of apprehension crept up to the back of her neck. She waited. Now surely something would happen.

But nothing happened except the continued scribble of pencil on paper in the silence. Oh, dear! this was worse than she had expected. It was worse than a scolding or a freezing or an awful squelching. It was the queerest thing that they were not even acquainted really after the many weeks.

There was a sh.e.l.l around this junior all the time. It made Ellen feel meaner and smaller and more insignificant every minute. The freshman pressed her forehead wearily against the gla.s.s.

”Oh, look! There come the girls. They're your friends away down on the lawn. Miss Abbott, I think, and Miss Leigh, and Miss Sanders. See, see!

The rollicking wind and the racing clouds! Their skirts blow. They hold on their tams. They are looking up at us. They are waving something.

Maybe it is violets, don't you think? Once I found violets in March.

Can't you smell the air almost? I'm going to open the window. I am, I am!

Who's afraid of getting chilled?”

”I would advise you not to do anything so utterly foolhardy,” spoke Lila's frigid voice. A certain inflection in the tone made Ellen shrink away instinctively. For an instant she looked full into the serene, indifferent eyes, and her own seemed to flutter as if struggling against the contempt she saw there. Then with a defiant lift of her head she hurried to the writing table and seized the pencil which Lila had dropped upon rising to approach the window.

A few minutes later when the older girl turned from the greetings and messages in pantomime with her friends below, she saw Ellen's rough head bending over a paper. It was a needlessly untidy head. During the weeks of close confinement and enforced companions.h.i.+p, she had felt her dislike steadily growing. The girl was on her nerves. She was wholly disagreeable. Everything about her was displeasing, her careless enunciation, queer little face, coa.r.s.e clothes, impulsive, crude ways, even occasional mistakes in grammar. She told herself that the child had no breeding, no manners, no sense of the fitness of things. There was no reason why she should admit her into the circle of her intimates merely because the two had been thrown together by the exigencies of an attack of scarlet fever. Such a fortuitous relation would be severed in the shortest possible time, completely and irremediably severed. Trust Lila Allan, president of the junior literary society, to manage that.

Meanwhile she intended to leave the girl severely alone. Think of the impudence of calling her Lila! Lila, indeed! And that hint about reading aloud! The incredible impertinence of it! And to appropriate her pencil!

Atrocious!

But of course she would keep on being polite. She owed that to herself, to her position, to her self-respect. Accordingly Miss Allan busied herself graciously about other matters till Ellen had finished her note, addressed an envelope, and advanced with it to the window.

She hesitated doubtfully, with one hand on the sash.

”It won't matter just this once,” she said as if arguing, ”somebody will pick it up and mail it for me. It concerns something important and private. People are silly about infection. I'm quite sure it won't matter just this once.” She paused this time with rather an anxious little side glance toward Lila.

That young lady said nothing. She was engaged in contemplating with a studiously inexpressive countenance the stub of her precious and only pencil. It needed sharpening again.

Ellen raised the window half an inch. ”The doctor here is so foolish,”

she commented with an injured air, ”she's always bothering about infection or contagion or whatever you call it. It isn't necessary either. I know a doctor at home and he told a woman to wrap up her little girl and bring her down to his office, and the little girl was peeling too. He knew it wouldn't do any harm even if she did go in the street car. He was sensible.”

Lila smothered a sigh of long suffering as she reached for the case knife again.

”And I am so tired,” insisted Ellen with fretful vehemence. ”I am bored to death, and n.o.body amuses me, and my eyes ache when I try to read, and my wrist won't peel, and all the other girls are enjoying themselves, and my letter is awfully important and private, and mother will be so glad to receive it, and my little sister will s.n.a.t.c.h it quick from the postcarrier, and they'll all be glad, and there isn't the least bit of danger, and I'm going to do it.” She flung the sash wide and glanced around for an instant with a face in which reckless defiance wrestled with a frightened wish to be dissuaded. ”I'm going to do it,” she repeated, ”I'm going to do it--Lila!”

Miss Allan raised her head with a politely controlled s.h.i.+ver. ”Would you mind closing the window at your earliest convenience, Miss Bright?”