Joey was no authority on architecture, however, and did not come to know all this till she had been some days at Redlands. Just then she merely thought that the place looked jolly, though about twice as big as she had expected.
The cab drew up before the flight of steps leading to the front door; Joey jumped out. A highly superior parlour-maid appeared before she had time to ring the bell. Probably she had heard the crunching of the many cab wheels on the gravel. Joey spoke at once. "Please could you direct me to the Chemical Lab? They told me to go there at once."
The maid looked a little surprised. "Miss Conyngham will be back soon, miss," she said hesitatingly. "Hadn't you better wait?"
"I was told to go there," Joe said firmly, and the maid pointed to a building on the right, rather behind the main block. "That's the Lab, miss; but unless the Professor is there you won't be able to go in. It's locked."
"I'll try anyhow," Joey told her, and walked off in the direction pointed out.
She went up two steps to the door of the Lab. Joey went up them cautiously, as when they played hide-and-seek at home and somebody was likely to spring out and catch you. But no furious professor sprang, and Joey tried the door, and found it was locked, but on the outside. So she turned the key and went in, with the words, "Please, I've come to tidy," ready on her lips.
But there was no one to whom to say them; the Lab was quite empty, though it certainly looked as though it had not been empty for long. Bottles stood upon a table, and two or three saucers containing various powders, and a large scented silk handkerchief of violet hue lay on the floor beside a dark closet with open door.
Joey began to tidy as well as she could. She used her handkerchief for a duster, and presently, finding it rather small, took up the violet one, which was already tolerably dirty and therefore might be dirtier without mattering, she thought.
She did not put the bottles away, in case the Professor should come back and want them, but she took them off the table and dusted it, and then put them back in orderly rows. The saucers she wisely did not touch, except to dust underneath them. Then she attacked the dark closet, which was surrounded by shelves, holding innumerable saucers, trays, bottles, and boxes. A good many of these things were on the floor. Joey rammed her dusters into the pockets of her coat, and set to work to find a safer resting-place for them. She was really interested by now in this duty which had been thrust upon her in right of her scholarship; so absorbed indeed that she never heard an exclamation at the door and a quick step across the room. She noticed nothing till the half-open door of the closet was wrenched violently wide. And she sprang round to find herself looking into the furious light eyes of the French Professor.