Berenice shrugged her shoulders. Her little beady eyes had their lashes drawn down upon them until they had narrowed into a mere slit.
"How you do fly up, Erma! I really did not think you had such a temper; but one thing you may rest assured of: it is always you sweet girls who fly into a passion at the slightest word."
"I have never posed as being a sweet girl, and I am not in a passion now. I have asked you a question which you have evaded. You have insinuated things about girls who call me their friend and I will never let such matters pass. I wish you to answer my question before we go one step further."
Erma stood still. The others did as she did. Berenice laughed lightly. "How very silly. A perfect tempest in a tea-cup simply because I choose to get off a joke."
"If that is a joke, it is in horribly bad taste," was Erma's retort.
"You are unjust, Erma. How many times have I heard you laugh at Helen for trying to stand in with the teachers, and for letting Mame copy her translations."
"Hundreds of times, but you always heard me laugh and jest when the girls themselves were present and when every one who heard, knew that it was mere fun. It was mere give and take between every one of our set who were present. You have yet to hear me criticise an absent girl, or jest about her."
Again Berenice shrugged her shoulders as though she would dismiss the subject.
"I am glad I am not ugly-tempered," she said and walked away without a backward glance at the others. For a moment, Erma was wounded. Then the humor of the situation came to her. She laughed until the silvery echoes rang from one end of the corridor to the other; and the girls begged to be quiet lest the hall-teacher follow in their footsteps and they be sentenced to solitary confinement on the campus.
After receiving the congratulations of her friends, Hester had gone to her room. Helen was busy preparing a lesson for the session the following morning.