“Oh, Polly,” cried Clarissa, as the two friends left the room, after paying their respects to the President and Dean. “Why, Polly, I can’t act; I don’t belong with those girls at all. Ruth Roberts, you know, barely tolerates me, and she’s to be the manager.”
“Nonsense, she isn’t the whole thing. Besides, I happen to know that she does want you.”
“What about Annabel?”
“Well, we can’t really leave her out. Her voice isn’t remarkable, but she acts pretty well; and since she’s been playing with the Cambridge Dramatic Club, she’s been considered our representative actor. Besides, she’s a great friend of Ruth’s.”
“I know it,” responded Clarissa. “You surely ought to have Annabel; but can I pull all right with those girls?”
“Of course, and I am to be a dapper little dandy. Though we are to be rivals in love, we can support each other.”
So at last Clarissa yielded, and after the mid-years, rehearsals went on pretty rapidly. There were, after all, several good parts in the operetta; and Ruth, viewing everything with the critical eye of a business manager, was certain that the performance would bring even more than she had hoped.
“Clarissa herself wouldn’t be so bad,” said Ruth one evening, as she and Julia sat in the study after dinner, “but I can’t say that I like her friends. She has a rather scrubby lot of hangers-on. Look at those two this afternoon!”
“Why, I saw nothing to criticise.”
“You never do, Julia, but they certainly hadn’t a word to say for themselves, and their clothes were frightful. Clarissa’s red coat is bad enough, but she is rather fine-looking, and she is so decidedly unlike any one else that you don’t have to apologize for her. But those others were so—so nondescript.”