It was the merest ripple of enjoying titter, but in Peggy’s crimson ears it roared and echoed until the mocking sound of it was the one thing in the world. She lifted her swimming eyes and kept them on Miss Tillotson’s face and even achieved a somewhat ghastly smile on her own account, believing, poor child, that she could thus keep secret the awful fact of her identity as the writer of that “thing”—the poem had already descended to this title in her mind—and that neither Miss Tillotson nor the girls need ever know.
“If all that the writer could ‘think or hope or plan’ is expressed in this particular—flight,” smiled Miss Tillotson, with that dear little quirk to her mouth that Peggy had loved so many times but which hurt now, oh, beyond words to tell, “I should think that dream world of hers would resemble a nightmare.”
Another gale of laughter swept the class, fluffy heads leaned back against the chairs in abandon and shirt-waisted shoulders shook.
Peggy felt that if Katherine looked at her or ventured a pat of sympathy she would die. But Katherine, when Peggy’s miserable glance sought her face, was gazing interestedly around the room from literary light to literary light as if to determine which could have been guilty of the blue manuscript. It certainly was a brilliant way to ward off detection from her room-mate and Peggy was grateful.
Peggy hardly knew how she got home that day. She and Katherine did not speak until they had gained the safety of their own suite and then they put a “Busy” sign on the door, and sat down on their couch.
“Katherine,” said Peggy at last, “one of two things must happen now. Either I shall never touch pen to paper again or I’ll keep at writing until I make a success of it and show Miss Tillotson that I can after all.”
“Yes, room-mate,” agreed Katherine solemnly, “that’s the only alternative open to you now.”
The tragic whiteness of Peggy’s face deepened.
“Never again, or—never give it up until I’ve made good,” she murmured. “It might mean—more times like this, Katherine, if I kept on,” she reminded tentatively.
“Yes, Peggy,” Katherine answered slowly, “I think it would mean more times like this.”