And it did, despite the rather dubious tone of the chairman’s prophecy. The Princess arrived duly just after luncheon, and everybody except the cast, who would do their share later, helped to entertain her. This was not difficult. She wasn’t a college girl, she explained, and she had never known many of them. She just wanted to hear them talk, see their rooms, and if it wasn’t too much trouble she should enjoy looking on at a game of—what was it they played so much at Harding? Basket-ball, somebody prompted. Yes, that was it. The sophomore teams which had just been chosen were proud to play a game for her, and they even suggested, fired by her responsive enthusiasm, that they should teach her to play too.
“I should love it,” she said, “if somebody would lend me one of those becoming suits. But I mustn’t.” She sighed. “The newspapers would be sure to get hold of it. Besides they’re giving a tea for me at the Belden. It begins in five minutes. Doesn’t time just fly at Harding?”
The monkey also arrived in good season, whether thanks to or in spite of Polly’s exertions was not clear, since his master spoke no English and not even Madeline could understand his Italian. The bagdads worked beautifully. The new Ermengarde was letter-perfect, and nobody but herself had any fear that she would be stage-struck, even though the Princess would be sitting in the very middle of the fourth row. Janet’s name was still on the program, for Roberta had sternly insisted that it shouldn’t be crossed out; and as neither of the two Ermengardes was very well known to the college in general, only a few people noticed the change. But the part made a hit.
“Isn’t she just like some little girl who used to go to school with you—that funny, stupid Ermengarde?” one girl would say to another. “They’re all natural, but she’s absolutely perfect.”
“Sara’s a dear,” said the Princess, “but I want to talk to Ermengarde. Mayn’t I go behind? We actor people always like to do that, you know.”
So she was escorted behind the scenes, and it was the proudest moment of Roberta’s life when the Princess, having asked particularly for her, said all sorts of nice things about her “real talent” and “artistic methods.”
“That settles it, Roberta,” said Betty, who was behind the scenes in her capacity of chief dressing-maid and first assistant to the make-up man. “You’ve got to try for senior dramatics.”
“Do you really think I could get a part?” asked Roberta coolly.
“I think you might,” said Betty, amazed beyond words by Roberta’s ready acquiescence. “You probably won’t get anything big,” she added cautiously. “There are such a lot of people in our class who can act. But the girls say that the only way to get a small part is to try for a big one. Don’t you remember how Mary Brooks tried for the hero and the heroine and the villain and then was proud as a peacock to be a page and say two lines, and Dr. Brooks and her mother and two aunts and six cousins came to see her do it.”
“Dear me,” said Roberta in frightened tones, “do you suppose my father and my cousin will feel obliged to come?”