“Don’t, Adelaide,” I begged. “Professor Waite is a gentleman; he has already told Winnie that he does not intend to exhibit the picture——”
“But I do not choose that he shall possess it,” she cried; “if you will not go with me I shall go alone,” and she hurried to the studio door. It was locked, and Professor Waite did not choose to reply to her oft-repeated knocks. He evidently considered Winnie’s visit all-sufficient for one morning. Adelaide came back in a towering passion. “If my poor hands would only let me write,” she exclaimed, “I would give him such a piece of my mind. Winnie, be my amanuensis. Write what I dictate.”
Winnie sat down good-humoredly and dashed off in her large scrawling script, which filled a page with these lines, the following indignant protest:
Professor Waite:
I regret that I consider the liberty you have taken in painting my portrait for the Academy Exhibition, without my knowledge or consent, a dishonorable act of which no gentleman would be guilty, and I demand that you destroy it instantly.
Adelaide Armstrong.
She was excited and she spoke loudly. When she finished, there was dead silence in the little parlor. We all felt that Adelaide had put it a little too strongly. That silence was broken by a half-suppressed sneeze on the balcony outside the window. A sneeze which we all recognized as belonging to Miss Noakes. Had she been listening? Had she heard? Winnie balanced the ink bottle over the letter ready to obliterate its contents by an “accident” if Miss Noakes suddenly knocked. No one appeared, and going to the window a moment afterward, I saw Miss Noakes walking between her window and ours, and taking in great sniffs of the keen morning air with much apparent enjoyment.
The bell rang for breakfast and Adelaide and I walked along together, pausing to slip the note under the studio door. It would not go quite through, a little end protruding, but that did not strike us as of any consequence. I had descended one flight of stairs when I found that I had forgotten my geometry and I hastened back to get it. I met Winnie before I turned into the corridor. “Hurry,” she exclaimed, “Snooks is just leaving her door; she will mark you for tardiness.” I flew along at the top of my speed, but on reaching our corridor I saw a sight which suddenly arrested my footsteps. Miss Noakes stood before the studio door, carefully adjusting her eye-glasses and looking at the note; presently she stooped, picked it up, and read the address. She hesitated a moment, seemed half inclined to replace it, turned it over as though she wished to open it, then glancing down the hall and spying me, she placed it in the great leather bag which hung at her side. She closed the bag with a savage click and glared at me as I turned and fled, for I had not the courage to meet her.
I reported the calamity at breakfast table in an awe-stricken whisper to Milly, who turned a trifle pale.
“I am afraid it will get Professor Waite into trouble,” she said, “Adelaide is still very angry with him, but I am sure she does not want to make him lose his position in the school.”