"Gerda's copying eighteenth-century heroines!" mocked Deirdre. "They always tried to outvie the rose. Didn't Herrick write a sonnet to his Julia's blushes? And I'm sure I remember reading somewhere:
'O, sweet and fair,
Beyond compare,
Are Daphne's cheeks.
And Daphne's blushing cheeks, I swear!'
Go it, Gerda! Can you possibly get a little redder if you try? If you outvie the rose, there's still the peony left!"
Gerda took her room-mates' teasing, as she took everything else at the Dower House, with little or no remonstrance. It would have pleased the girls much better if they could have raised a spark out of her. Her queer, self-contained reserve was not at all to their taste, and they awarded the palm of popularity to Betty Scott, whose high spirits, perpetual jokes, and amusing tongue made her the public entertainer of the Form.
"I wish Betty were acting," sighed Dulcie. "She's always the life and soul of a play. It was very stupid of her mother not to want her to learn Latin."
"I'm afraid Gerda'll be a perfect stick as Ancus Vinitius," whispered Deirdre.
"An absolute dummy," agreed her chum.
But they underestimated Gerda's talents. Her part was a small one, yet she rendered it excellently. She walked, acted, and spoke with a calm dignity well in keeping with the character she represented. Everybody agreed that she made a most reverend and stately senator.
"I ought to look old, though," she maintained. "It's absurd for us all to look so youthful."
"Powder your hair," suggested Irene.