Part 12 (1/2)

”Of course not, my dear,” returned Mrs. Kent, serenely. ”She's at the infirmary with a badly sprained ankle. She'll have to keep off it for a month at least, the doctor says.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”OH, I BEG YOUR PARDON”]

”Oh, Mrs. Kent!” wailed Betty. ”And she's Ermengarde St. John in the house-play. What can we do?”

Mrs. Kent shook her head helplessly. ”You'll have to do without Janet,”

she said. ”That's certain. She was on her way home to dinner when she slipped on a piece of ice near the campus-gate. She lay there several minutes before any one saw her, and then luckily Dr. Trench came along and drove her straight to the infirmary. She fainted while they were bandaging her ankle.”

”I'm very sorry,” said Betty, her vision of a possible hasty recovery dispelled by the last sentence. After a moment's hesitation she decided not to go back to the Students' Building to consult Nita. It would be better to bring some one over from the house to read the part for to-night. It was important, but luckily it wasn't very long, and somebody would have to learn it in time for the play the next evening.

So she hurried up-stairs again and the first person she met was Roberta Lewis, marching down the corridor with a huge Greek dictionary under her arm.

”Put that book down, Roberta; and come over to the rehearsal,”

commanded Betty. ”Ermengarde St. John has sprained her ankle, and gone to the infirmary and everybody's waiting.”

”You mean that you want me to go and get her?” asked Roberta doubtfully.

”Because I think it would take two people to help her walk, if she's very lame. She's awfully fat, you know.”

”We want you to read Janet's part,” explained Betty, ”just for to-night, until the committee can find some one to take it.” And she gave a little more explicit account of the state of affairs at the rehearsal.

”Yes, indeed, I'll be glad to,” said Roberta readily. She was secretly delighted to be furnished with an excuse for seeing the dress rehearsal.

She had longed with all her soul to be appointed a member of the play-committee, but of course the house-president had not put her on; she was the last person, so the president thought, who would be useful there. And Roberta could not screw her courage up to the point of trying for a place in the cast. So no one knew, since she had never told any one, that she thought acting the most interesting thing in the world and that she loved to act, in spite of the terrors of having an audience. But she had let slip her one chance--the offer of a part in Mary's famous melodrama away back in her freshman year--and she had never had another.

And now, because she was Roberta Lewis, proud and shy and dreadfully afraid of pus.h.i.+ng in where she wasn't wanted, she did not think it necessary to mention to Betty that she had borrowed a copy of the play from little Ruth Howard, who was Sara, and that she had read it over until she knew almost every line of it by heart.

Of course the committee were thrown into a state bordering upon panic by the news of Janet's accident, but Madeline comfortingly reminded them that the worse the last rehearsal was, the better the play was sure to be; and there was certainly nothing to do now but go ahead.

So they began to rehea.r.s.e at last, almost an hour late, and the first act went off with great spirit, in spite of the handicap of a strange Ermengarde, who had to read her part because she was ashamed to confess that she knew it already, and who was supposed not to be familiar with her ”stage business.” To be sure, she had not very much to do in this scene, but at the end everybody thanked her effusively and Ruth Howard declared that she never saw anybody who ”caught on” so fast.

”You ought to take the part to-morrow night,” she said.

”Oh, oh!” Roberta cautioned her, in alarm and embarra.s.sment. ”They're going to have Polly Eastman. I heard Nita say so. Besides, I wouldn't for anything.”

Ermengarde's chance comes in the second act, where, half in pity and half in admiration for the queer little Sara Crewe, she comes up to make friends with her, and, finding to her horror that Sara is actually hungry, decides to bring her ”spread” up to Sara's attic. There, later, the terrible Miss Minchen finds her select pupils gathered, and wrathfully puts an end to their merry-making.

At the opening of this scene the attic was supposed to be lighted by one small candle, and consequently the stage was very dim.

”I don't believe Roberta can manage with that light,” whispered Nita to Betty who was standing with her in one of the wings.

”Don't let's change unless we have to,” Betty whispered back. ”You know we wanted to get the effect of Miss Minchen's curl papers and night-cap.

Why, Nita, Roberta hasn't any book. She's saying her part right off.”

”No!” Nita was incredulous. ”Why, Betty Wales, she is, and she's doing it splendidly, fifty per cent, better than Janet did.”

Sure enough Roberta, becoming engrossed in the play, had forgotten to conceal her unwarranted knowledge of it. She realized what she had done when a burst of applause greeted her exit, and actors and committee alike forgot the proprieties of a last rehearsal to make a united a.s.sault upon her.

”Roberta Lewis,” cried Betty accusingly, ”why didn't you tell me that you knew Ermengarde's part?”

”Oh, I don't know it,” protested Roberta. ”I only know s.n.a.t.c.hes of it here and there. Polly can learn it in no time.”