“You here, Ray? Miss Beasley wants some change to pay the laundry. You’ve got the money you collected at your coon concert last night; can you let her have thirty shillings in silver, and she’ll give you notes instead?”
“Certainly,” replied Raymonde, rising at once and unlocking her drawer in the bureau. “Here you are—four half-crowns make ten shillings, eight shillings is eighteen, and twenty-four sixpences make thirty shillings altogether. I’d just as soon have notes.”
“Right-o!” said Veronica. “I’ll bring them up to you later on, or send somebody with them. I hope our entertainment will do as well as yours. By the by, a queer thing happened just this minute. I saw the ghost girl again!”
“Where?” asked Raymonde excitedly.
“Peeping round the corner of the winding staircase; but she vanished instantly. I went up a few steps, but couldn’t see her. The wire door was open, and I very nearly ran up to the attic to investigate, but I knew Miss Beasley was waiting for the change. I must rush and give it to her now, or there’ll be squalls. Ta-ta!”
Raymonde did not either lock up her drawer or resume her Euclid. She stood for a moment or two 256 pondering. Then a mischievous light broke over her face, and she clapped her hands.
“Splendiferous! I’ll do it!” she said aloud; and, whisking out of the room, she ran up the winding staircase, and through the open wire door into the forbidden but fascinating territory of the attics.
The girls at the Grange were obliged to keep strictly to their practising time-table, and Raymonde was due at the piano in the sanctum from 5.30 until 6.15. At 5.40, which was fully ten minutes late, the strains of her Beethoven Sonata began to resound down the passage. Mademoiselle, passing from her bedroom, stood for a moment to listen. She was impressed by the fact that Raymonde was playing much better than usual, and performing in quite a stylish fashion the passage which usually baffled her. She almost opened the door to congratulate her pupil, but being in a hurry changed her mind, and ran downstairs instead. A little later Veronica, also in much haste, entered the room arm-in-arm with Hermie.
“Miss Beasley has sent the notes, Ray,” she explained. “You needn’t stop. I’ll just pop them inside your drawer, and you can put them away properly when you’ve finished practising.”
The figure at the piano did not turn her head, or attempt to reply, but went on diligently with the scherzo movement of the Sonata, bringing out her chords crisply, and executing some quite brilliant runs.