“No!” Nita was incredulous. “Why, Betty Wales, she is, and she’s doing it splendidly, fifty per cent, better than Janet did.”
Sure enough Roberta, becoming engrossed in the play, had forgotten to conceal her unwarranted knowledge of it. She realized what she had done when a burst of applause greeted her exit, and actors and committee alike forgot the proprieties of a last rehearsal to make a united assault upon her.
“Roberta Lewis,” cried Betty accusingly, “why didn’t you tell me that you knew Ermengarde’s part?”
“Oh, I don’t know it,” protested Roberta. “I only know snatches of it here and there. Polly can learn it in no time.”
“She won’t have the chance,” said Nita decisively. “You must take it, Roberta. Why didn’t you tell people that you could act like that?”
“I shall have stage-fright and spoil everything,” declared Roberta forlornly.
“Nonsense,” said Nita. “You’d be ashamed to do anything of the kind.”
“Yes,” agreed Roberta solemnly, “I should.” Whereupon everybody laughed, and Nita hugged Roberta and assured her that there was no way out of it.
“Somebody go and get Janet’s costume,” she ordered, “and any one who has a spare minute can be fitting it over. We shall have to have an extra rehearsal to-morrow of the parts where Ermengarde comes in. Go on now, Sara. Use Lucile’s muff for the monkey.”
When at last act three was finished it was ten o’clock and Nita gave a sigh of utter exhaustion. “If Madeline’s rule holds,” she said, “this play ought to go like clockwork to-morrow.”