A VISIT OF STATE.
Judy still slept the sleep of the exhausted. Her tired forces craved a
long rest after the storm that had lashed and beaten them. The girls
crept about the room softly and spoke in low voices, and when they went
down to the early dinner locked the door and took the key with them.
Later, fearing callers, again they hung out a Busy sign and settled
themselves comfortably for a peaceful afternoon. Nance, armed with a
dictionary and notebook, was translating "Les Miserables," a penitential
task she had set for herself for two hours every Sunday.
Molly was also engaged in a penitential task. She was endeavoring to
compose a story on simple and natural lines. It was very difficult. Her
mind at this moment seemed to be an avenue for bands of roving and
irrelevant thoughts and refused to concentrate on the work at hand. She
made several beginnings, as: "One blustering, windy day in March a
lonely little figure----" With a contemptuous stroke of her pencil, she
drew a line through the words and wrote underneath: "It was a calm,
beautiful morning in May----"
Twirling her pencil, she paused to consider this statement.
"No, no, that won't do," she thought. "It's entirely too commonplace."
She glanced absently over at the book Nance was reading. "Victor Hugo
would probably have put it this way: 'It was the fifteenth of May, 17--.
A young girl was hurrying along the Rue----. She paused at the house,
No. 11.' Oh, dear," pondered Molly, "one has to tell something very
important to write in that way. It's like sending a telegram. Just as
much as possible expressed in the fewest possible words. Can the
professor mean that? Would he mind if I asked him and then at the same
time, perhaps----" Again the wandering thoughts broke off. "It's rather
hard he should have misunderstood about this morning. Is there no way I
can explain without involving Judy? Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How complicated
life is, and what a complicated nature is Judy's."
There were two quick raps on the door. Molly and Nance exchanged
frightened glances. It was not the masonic tap of their friends, and no
one else would have knocked on a door which advertised a Busy sign.
There was, in fact, a note of authority in the double rap. Some instinct
prevented Nance from calling out "Come in," a matter later for
self-congratulation. She rose and opened the door and President Walker
entered. If Miss Walker had ever paid a visit to a student before, the
girls had not heard of it. It was, so far as they knew, an entirely
unprecedented happening and quite sufficient to make innocent people
look guilty and set hearts to pumping blood at double-quick time.
"I saw your Busy sign," said Miss Walker, glancing from one startled
face to the other, "but I shall not keep you long. What a pretty room,"
she added, looking about her approvingly.
"Thank heavens, it's straight," thought Nance, groaning mentally.
"Won't you sit down, Miss Walker?" asked Molly, pushing forward one of
the easy chairs.
The President sat down. There was a plate of "cloudbursts" on the table.
Would it be disrespectful to offer the President some of this delectable
candy? Nance considered it would be, decidedly so. But Molly, a slave to
the laws of hospitality, took what might be called a leap in the dark
and silently held the plate in front of the President. If this turned
out to be a visit of state it was rather a risky thing to do. But Miss
Walker helped herself to one piece and then demanded another.
"Delicious," she said. "Did you make it, Miss Brown?"
"Yes, Miss Walker."
It had been purely a stroke of luck with Molly, who had no way to know
that Miss Walker had a sweet tooth.
"I must have that recipe. What makes it so light?"
"The whites of eggs beaten very stiff, and the rest of it is just melted
brown sugar. It's very easy," added Molly, forming a resolution to make
the President a plate of "cloudbursts" without loss of time.
"Who is the third girl who shares this apartment with you?" asked Miss
Walker, unexpectedly coming back to business.
"Julia Kean."
"And where is she to-day?"
Nance hesitated.
"She is sick in bed to-day, Miss Walker."
"Ahem! Cold, I suppose?"
"It's more excitement than anything else," put in Molly. "The junior
play----"
"Oh, yes. She was 'Viola,' of course," said the President.
"You see she had a bad attack of stage fright," continued Molly, "and
Judy is so excitable and sensitive. She exaggerated what happened and it
made her ill."
"And what did happen? She forgot her lines, as I recall. But that often
occurs. Even professionals have been known to forget their parts. Ellen
Terry is quite notorious for her bad memory, but she is a great actress,
nevertheless."
The girls were silent. They wondered what in the world Miss Walker was
driving at.
"And then what happened next?"
They looked at her blankly.
"What happened next?" repeated Molly.
"Yes. I want you to begin and tell me the whole thing from beginning to
end."
Molly rested her chin on her hand and looked out of the window. This is
what had been familiarly spoken of in college as being "on the grill."
"What do you want us to tell, Miss Walker?" asked Nance with a
surprising amount of courage in her tones.
"I want to know," said the President sternly, "where you were between
twelve and one o'clock on Friday night."
"We were on the lake," announced Nance, with keen appreciation of the
fact that when President Walker made a direct question she expected a
direct answer and there was no getting around it.
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"You mean to tell me that you three girls went rowing on the lake alone
at that hour? What escapade is this?"
Her voice was so stern that it made Molly quake in her boots, but Nance
was as heroic as an early Christian martyr.
"It was not a mad escapade. We did it because we had to," she answered.
"Why?"
Nance paused. This was the crucial point. It looked as if Miss Walker
must be told about Judy's folly, or themselves be disgraced.
"They came for me," announced a hoarse voice from the door.
It was such an unexpected interruption that all three women started
nervously, but if Molly and Nance had been more observant they would
have noticed the President stifle a smile which twitched the corners of
her mouth.
Judy, in a long red dressing-gown, her hair in great disorder and her
eyes glittering feverishly, came trailing into the room. In one hand she
grasped Nance's slipper and with the other she made a dramatic gesture,
pointing to herself.
"They came for me," she repeated. "I had been angry and said cruel,
unjust things to Molly. Everybody went off and left me after the play. I
was locked out and I was so unhappy, I wanted to be alone. Water always
comforts me. You see, I was born at sea, and I took a canoe from the
boat house and paddled into the middle of the lake. Then those two Sweet
Spirits of Niter came for me, and the canoe upset and I--I dropped my
slipper somewhere, 5-B is the number--I don't know who found it--here's
its mate----" Judy waved the slipper over her head and laughed wildly.
"The child's delirious," exclaimed Miss Walker, smiling in spite of
herself.
They persuaded Judy to get back into bed and the President sent Nance
flying for the doctor. Presently, when Judy had dropped off to sleep
again, Molly finished the story of that exciting evening.
"But, my dear," said the President, slipping her arm around Molly's
waist and drawing her down on the arm of the chair, "what prompted you
to go to the lake and nowhere else?"
"I can never explain really what it was," replied Molly. "I dreamed that
someone said 'hurry.' I wasn't even thinking of Judy when I started to
dress. You see, we thought she had gone to bed. I hadn't thought of the
lake, either. It was just as if I was walking in my sleep, Nance said.
Then we found Judy wasn't in her room, and I knew she needed me. I
remember we ran all the way to the lake."
"Strange, strange!" said Miss Walker.
She drew Molly's face down to her own and kissed her. There were tears
on the President's cheek and Molly looked the other way.
"Sometimes, Molly," she said after a moment, "you remind me of my dear
sister who died twenty years ago."
It was a good while before Nance returned with Dr. McLean and in the
interval of waiting Molly and Miss Walker talked of many things. Molly
told her how they had buried the slipper on Round Head, and of how they
had seen the Professor and been frightened. They talked of Judy's
temperament and of what kind of mental training Judy should have to
learn to control her wild spirits. From that the talk drifted to Molly's
affairs, and then she asked the President to do her the honor of
drinking a cup of tea in her humble apartment. The two women spent an
intimate and delightful hour together, with Judy sound asleep in the
next room, and no one to disturb them because of that blessed Busy sign.
At last Dr. McLean came blustering in, and, seeing the President and
Molly in close converse over their cups of tea, chuckled delightedly and
observed:
"They are all alike, the women folk--the talk lasts as long as the tea
lasts, and there's always another cup in the pot."
"Have a look at your patient, doctor," said Miss Walker, "and we'll save
that extra cup in the pot for you."
The doctor was not disturbed over Judy's delirium.
"It's joost quinine and excitement that's made her go a bit daffy," he
said. "Keep her quiet for a day or so. She'll be all right."
Imagine their surprise, ten minutes later, when Margaret Wakefield
and the Williamses, peeping into the room, found Molly and Nance
entertaining the President of Wellington and Dr. McLean at tea. The news
spread quickly along the corridor and when the distinguished guests
presently departed almost every girl in the Quadrangle had made it her
business to be lingering near the stairway or wandering in the hall.
Only one person heard nothing of it, and that was Minerva Higgins, who,
after Vespers, had taken a long walk. Nobody told her about it
afterward, because she was not popular with the Quadrangle girls and
had formed her associations with some freshmen in the village. When it
was given out that evening that Miss Walker had come to see about Judy,
who had been quite ill, the talk died down.
Having dropped the heavy load of responsibility they had been carrying
for two days, Molly and Nance felt foolishly gay. Molly made Miss Walker
a box of cloudbursts before she went to bed, while Nance read aloud a
thrilling and highly exciting detective story borrowed from Edith
Williams, whose shelves held books for every mood.
"By the way, Nance," observed Molly, when the story was finished, "how
do you suppose Miss Walker found it all out?"
"Why, Professor Green, of course," answered Nance in a matter of fact
voice. "There was never any doubt in my mind from the first moment she
came into the room."
"What?" cried Molly, thunderstruck.
"There was no other way. He saw us burying the slipper and I suppose he
thought it his duty to inform on us."
"He didn't feel it his duty to inform on Judith Blount when she cut the
electric wires that night," broke in Molly.
"Perhaps he didn't think that was as wrong as rowing on the lake with
boys from Exmoor. Besides, she was his relative."
Molly took off her slipper and held it up as if she were going to pitch
it with all her force across the room. Then she dropped it gently on the
floor.
"I'm disappointed," she said.