“You don’t think that your pin was stolen?” asked Betty quickly. There had been no robberies in the college since Christmas, and the girls were beginning to hope that the mysterious thief had been discouraged by their greater care in locking up their valuables, and had gone off in search of more lucrative territory.
“Yes, I do think so,” said Roberta. “I almost know it. You see I hadn’t been wearing my pin. I only took it out to show Polly Eastman, because she hadn’t happened to see one. Then K. came and we went off to walk. I left the pin right on my dressing-table and now it’s gone. But the queerest part is that Georgia Ames was in my room almost all the time, because hers was being swept, and before that she was in Lucy Mann’s, with the door wide open into the hall, and my door open right opposite. And yet she never saw or heard anything. Isn’t it strange?”
“She was probably busy talking and didn’t notice,” said Betty. “People are everlastingly tramping through the halls, until you don’t think anything about it. Have you looked on the floor and in all your drawers? It’s probably tumbled down somewhere and got caught in a crack under the dressing-table or the rug.”
“No, I’ve looked in all those places,” said Roberta with finality. “You know I haven’t as many things to look through as you.”
“Please don’t be sarcastic,” laughed Betty, for Roberta’s belongings were all as trim and tailor-made as herself. “How did you get your cold?”
“Why K. and I got caught in a miserable little snow flurry,” explained Roberta, pulling the pink shawl closer, “and—I got my feet wet. My throat’s horribly sore. It won’t be well for a week, and I can’t try for the play.”
Roberta struggled out of the encumbering folds of the green afghan and trailed her other draperies swiftly to the window, whose familiar view she seemed to find intensely absorbing.
“Oh, yes, you can,” said Betty comfortingly. “Why, your throat may be all right by to-morrow, and anyway it’s only the Portia and Shylock trials that come then. Were you going to try for either of those parts?”
“Yes,” gulped Roberta thickly.
Behind Roberta’s back Betty was free to pucker her mouth into a funny little grimace that denoted amusement, surprise and sympathy, all together. “Then I’ll ask Barbara Gordon to give you a separate trial later,” she said kindly. “Nothing will be really decided to-morrow. We only make tentative selections to submit to Mr. Masters when he comes up next week. He’s the professional coach, you know.”