Betty went over the desk again, just to be doing something. Just before Madeline arrived, she remembered the secret drawer. The theme was in that, of course! When Madeline declared that she hadn’t seen it, and that it couldn’t be with her papers, because she hadn’t had any on the desk for five days, Betty insisted on her opening the secret drawer.
“I simply must learn to open it,” she said. “I knew something would get lost in there, and if you were away, I shouldn’t be able to get it out. There, Madeline, that’s the way you did it the first time you opened it. I think I shall remember now. Oh, it isn’t there! I do hope she’s found it herself.”
But a minute later Eugenia burst in, arrayed in her roommate’s oldest raincoat, furs and complacence alike discarded. “Have you found it?” she cried. “Because I knew I shouldn’t, and I didn’t.”
“Oh, Eugenia! No, it isn’t here. Madeline, do come and suggest what to do.”
Madeline was as sympathetic as possible, but even her vaunted resourcefulness could find no feasible remedy for Eugenia’s plight.
“Ask for more time,” she began.
“She won’t give it unless you’ve been sick,” Eugenia objected.
“Go home and write your theme to-night. You can do it, with coffee and wet towels. If your matron is fussy about lights, come down to our house.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” declared Eugenia tragically. “I can’t hurry on themes. I’m as slow as a snail when I try to write sense. I spent six evenings on this, outside of copying.”
“Then go and explain that you’ve lost it, and throw yourself on the lady’s tender mercies. Go right away, so she won’t be irritated beforehand by all the other regular eleventh hour excuses.”