"Not enough. I think I can do better than that."
Rather to the girls' amusement, Gerda seemed more than ordinarily anxious about her costume.
"She couldn't make more fuss if she was taking Coriolanus himself!" laughed Dulcie. "The Senator might be the chief part."
Gerda had notions of her own, which she proceeded to carry out. She went to Jessie Macpherson and borrowed the white wig, and with the help of some more sheep's wool contrived a beard to match. On the afternoon of the performance she not only donned these, but blackened her eyebrows and painted her face with a series of wrinkles and crows'-feet.
"Why, it's splendid!" exclaimed the girls. "You look seventy at the very least. Just the sort of venerable old city father you're meant for."
"You'd hardly know me, would you?" enquired Gerda casually.
"Nobody would know you. I don't believe even Miss Birks will recognize you. It's the best make-up of anybody's. Jessie'll be proud to see her wig used after all. She'll almost wish she'd worn it herself."
The performers found the dressing nearly the greatest part of the fun. They arranged Volumnia's classical garments and ornaments, adjusted her gold fillet; draped the folds of Veturia's flowing robe, and persuaded Brutus to abandon spectacles for the occasion.
"You forget we're supposed to be in circum 490 B.C.," remarked Jessie Macpherson.
"I shall be blind without them!" objected Brutus.