After all, one table more or less wouldn’t matter, she reflected, on a night when practically every Harding girl would try to get her dinner at the Tally-ho.
Miss Dwight off the stage was a demure little lady with wonderful eyes, a smile that made people who saw it smile back in spite of themselves, and a voice that thrilled one no matter what its owner said. Her hair was gray, and so were her clothes, when they weren’t black. She hated attention, shrank forlornly behind Madeline when the girls stared or sang to her, and only came to dinner at the Tally-ho because Madeline had assured her that it was, at the dinner-hour, the very soul and centre of the college world.
Having come, she exclaimed rapturously at all the “features,” and then, perceiving that she was the chief of them, she hid in the remotest corner of Jack o’ Hearts’ stall, with Madeline on one side for protection and Mary and Betty to talk to across the way. Her big hat drooped so far over her face that girls who rudely looked in as they went by the stall saw nothing but the soft curve of her cheek and her chin cleft by a big dimple—unless it happened to be a moment when she had boldly resolved to look out upon these “wonderful, frightful collegians.” Then she lifted the brim of the absurd hat with a fascinating gesture, and smiled her clear, childlike smile at the curious passers-by.
Dorothy’s table was the one nearest to Jack o’ Hearts’ stall, so that she and her friends came in for a generous share of Miss Dwight’s smiling inspection of her surroundings. But that wasn’t enough for Frisky Fenton.
“I’ve just got to speak to her,” she declared. “If she’s as retiring as you say, Dot, I’m afraid we shan’t get any chance later. I think I’ll go over there now.”
“But I’m afraid Betty wouldn’t like it,” objected the Smallest Sister anxiously.
“Well, if she doesn’t, she won’t blame you,” retorted Frisky, “and I shan’t mind being in hot water with her, as long as I get a chance to talk to Miss Dwight. I can make it all right with your sister afterward, I’m sure.”
“Please don’t go, Frisky,” begged Dorothy, sending imploring glances across at Betty, who was perfectly oblivious of the Smallest Sister’s efforts. “It’s not polite to go where you’re not invited. Betty said she’d have us meet Miss Dwight later if she could.”
Frisky gave an irritating little laugh. “You don’t understand about such things, dear. I’m not a child, to be sent for with dessert.” And with that she jumped up and crossed quickly to Jack o’ Hearts’ stall, where she appeared, a very pretty, demure, totally inexplicable vision, before the astonished party of diners. She nodded to Betty and Madeline, smiled at Mary, and curtseyed, with dropped eyes, before Miss Dwight.
“Excuse me, Miss Dwight,” she said sweetly, “but do you think I’d be a success on the stage? I’m crazy about it.”