"I'm awfully sorry to disturb you. But could you lend me your Solid Geometry, Helen? Did you get that original? Have you really? Isn't that lovely! Would you object to letting me look over it for a moment?"
Helen took the book from the study-table and drawing out an original, handed it to Renee who, sitting down, began a thorough study of the problem she could not solve for herself.
Barely was Renee disposed of than Josephine came in. She moved languidly. Her eyes were opened very wide, but instead of brilliance or alertness, they spoke of sentiment and dreaminess. Josephine had made a study of looking so. Soulful, she thought it to be; but the girls called it by another name not so complimentary and rallied her good-naturedly about it.
Renee was quick, in action and thought. Josephine's slowness annoyed her. Now, she took her eyes from the paper which she had been studying on, and cried brusquely, "If someone would only set a fire under you, you'd get somewhere sooner, Jo. Why don't you move, when you move."
Jo was not annoyed. She moved not a whit faster. Gliding in, she seated herself on a shirt-waist box and assumed a pose of figure which she believed to be artistic. She showed no annoyance at Renee's speech. She smiled sweetly and serenely. No matter what was said to her, or done in her presence, that smile came to her. Her placidity was exceedingly annoying to this set of girls. "If Jo was not always so sugary sweet," was the general complaint. "If she would not always agree to everything. If only now and then she would express an opinion, one would know at least that she had formed one." These were the only complaints ever made against her.
"Has something been troubling you?" she asked Helen. "You appear quite disturbed."
"I am. I lost a pin." Helen told how she had placed it that evening she had last worn it, and how it had mysteriously disappeared. Both Jo and Renee had seen the heirloom, for Helen had worn it at intervals since she had entered the hall.
"I'd advertise for it. You might have dropped it in the hall somewhere. Have Doctor Weldon announce it in chapel; and put a notice on the bulletin board in the main hall." It was Renee who made the practical suggestion.
"I'm sure I did not lose it outside this room. I am quite sure of that."
"About as sure as one can be of anything. I've noticed, however, that being sure is no proof."