myself to listen intentionally, but the conversation of those girls, who were still strangers to me, always fascinated me, and I confess I used to overhear all that I could without being dishonourable. As I sauntered by the half-closed door of that room I recognised the voice of Sarah Platt herself, who of all the girls I had aspired to make my best friend. Sarah was a dashing kind of girl and would show off to awfully good advantage before my family if I had invited her to visit me.
"Well," I heard her say, "I think Miss Brown is taking her in on charity."
I knew Sarah must be referring to me and I stopped stock-still.
"Why, she hasn't anything, and this horrid place is probably a palace to her!"
I flushed with rage. Palace nothing!
"I think," said a little Jewess by the name of Elsie Weil, "it's too bad for Gabriella. I'd hate to have such a room-mate forced on me."
"I don't think Miss Brown ought to take such a girl in at all and make us who pay a thousand dollars a year be intimate with a person we never can know socially," drawled Sarah Platt. "It's hard on her too," she finished patronisingly.
"Oh, don't mind about me," I breathed, ready to explode.
"I'm just tired," another girl broke in, "of having all the teachers, and Miss Brown too, talking and lecturing to us about being nice to Lucy, Lucy, Lucy all the time."
"And the spite and scorn that the child puts on lately," added Sarah, "is perfectly absurd. As if she had anything to back it up!"
"I know," went on the little Jewess, "her family can't be much. You can see that. Did you ever notice the row of old-fashioned family pictures on the back of her chiffonier?"
At that I caught my breath. My dear good family! And without waiting to hear another word I flung open the door. There were six or seven girls before me crowded together in a bunch on a couch in the corner. I felt myself grow suddenly calm as I stood there before them not saying a word, and they staring back at me as if I were an apparition.
"I heard every single word you said," I began slowly, "every single word!" Then my thoughts collected themselves and filed by in the order of soldiers on parade. "I don't care a straw for your opinions. I feel above every one of you. It makes me smile to think I would be the least disturbed by common and uneducated westerners," for Sarah lived in Missouri, "or Jews!" I spat at Elsie Weil. "You needn't any of you trouble about being kind to me. I don't want your kindness. I'm perfectly indifferent to every one of you. I am not here on charity; and as for the pictures on my chiffonier, if you don't like them, lump them, or else keep your eyes at home." I knew I was acting unladylike but I was fired up and couldn't help going on. "My family may not have fashionable photographs, my clothes may be as ugly as mud, but if you knew who my older brother is, if you knew who my father is, if you knew! My father is president of the Vars & Company Woollen Mills; my father is a director in the Hilton County Savings Bank; my father is a state senator; my father—oh, I shan't tell you all he is, because you haven't got enough brains to appreciate it. It would be like telling monkies about Abraham Lincoln!" I stopped just a moment, but no one spoke. All those girls huddled together in a bunch just kept on staring as they would at a rearing horse in a parade, meekly from the sidewalk. "You don't know about anything but clothes and theatres. And let me tell you once for all I don't want anything of any of you." Sarah Platt opened her mouth to speak. I cut her off short. "Keep still, Sarah Platt," I said. "Don't you dare address one word to me!" Oh, I wanted to do something insulting, like sticking out my tongue, or making an ugly face. But instead I just said, "And don't one of you in this room ever assume to speak one word to me as long as you live!" And I turned, stalked out of the room, and went straight upstairs.
I don't know how I could have said anything so horrid as all that, and I seventeen years old, but somehow it is always easier for me to roll off spiteful things than anything sweet and kind. I am always less embarrassed about it. Poor Alec would have been awfully disappointed to have heard such an outburst from his sister. Father would have said, "Oh, Lucy!" The arrogant twins wouldn't have wanted to own me. Only my dear old chum Juliet Adams would have been proud. She would have exclaimed, "Bully for you, Bobs!"
When I reached my room on the next floor, I calmly opened the door and went in. Gabriella was standing by her desk. I never shall forget how she looked—perfectly white and staring at me horribly. I wondered what ailed her, for she couldn't have heard my tirade on the floor below.
"What's the matter, Gabriella?" I asked.
"Oh, Lucy," she began, then sank down in a chair by her desk, leaned forward with her head buried in her arms, and began to cry dreadfully.
I went over to her.
"Gabriella," I said, sorry for her somehow, for though she was one of Sarah Platt's clique she had not been talking about me; she was, after all, my room-mate, and at least she let me see her cry. "Please, Gabriella, tell me what it is."
"Miss Brown," she choked, "wants—" she stopped, then wailed, "you!"
"Me?" I groped blindly. Me? Had my awful words been telegraphed to Miss Brown's office? Did she know already? I couldn't follow. Things were happening too rapidly. "Me, Gabriella," I asked. "But what for? Please stop crying and tell me."
I could barely catch a few words amidst her violent sobs.
"My father," she said. (I knew Gabriella's father had died the winter before when she was away at school.) "A telegram," she stumbled on, and I waited, "your father—"
My father!
I went to Gabriella quickly, put my arm about her and leaned my head down close to hers.
"Listen, Gabriella. Be quiet for just one minute and answer me. Did you say my father?" and then in a fresh torrent of sobs I heard her "Yes."
I left her crying there and went down through the long corridors to Miss Brown's office. I passed Sarah Platt's room without knowing it. I even passed some one in the hall but I have no idea who it was. I kept thinking, "This is your first test. Be ready and don't break."
Miss Brown was at her desk. She started a little when she saw me, then smiled—how could she smile—and said, "Oh, Gabriella found you. Come here, dear," and she put out her hand. I closed the door and then backed up against it. I couldn't go near Miss Brown. I didn't want her tissue-paper sympathy.
"What's happened to my father, Miss Brown?" I asked. "You can tell me the very worst right off."
She didn't hedge any more.
"He is very, very ill," she replied, going straight to the point as I liked to have her.
"Does that mean," I said, "that he is—is—" I couldn't say it—"is worse than very ill?" I finished.
"No," she replied. "No, Lucy. Your father is still living. I have just called up your brother by long distance telephone and they want you to come home immediately. It is your father's heart." Then she added, looking at me firmly, as if she were upholding me by the hand: "It is a long trip. You must be prepared for the worst, Lucy." I didn't answer and she turned to her desk, picked up a piece of paper and passed it to me. "Read it," she said. "It is a telegram for you."
I looked down and these words greeted me like dear, comforting friends:
"Stand up, Bobbie. Be brave. We need you to be strong. Alec."
