“Seize him! To the shambles!”
“To the guillotine! Ho, brothers! pursue!”
That made Robbie Belle flee so fast that she was able to take refuge behind Prexie himself while the vengeful furies withdrew to a respectful distance. That night when she was shaking her pillow back into its case Robbie noticed some damp spots amid its creases. A few minutes later she laid her head down on it and proceeded to create some more. There was only one comfort in the throng of scorching reflections: this was that it had not been Berta’s voice that had called her an intruder. Perhaps Berta did not think she had done something so awfully wicked after all.
This faint hope infused more dreadful bitterness into the incident that happened in mathematics C on Monday. Anybody would have believed that Berta was offended past forgiveness. She sat next to Robbie. She was not very well prepared that morning, possibly in consequence of Saturday’s excitement. The instructor was more than usually curt and crisp with an unsmiling sternness that struck terror to palpitating freshman hearts. In the middle of the hour Berta became aware that a problem was traveling rapidly down the row toward her; and she had not been paying attention. She had not even noticed the statement of it, for it had started at an apparently safe distance from her seat. Turning with a swift motion of the lips she asked Robbie Belle to tell her. And Robbie Belle—how she longed to tell it! It had almost leaped from her lips while conscience reasoned wildly against it as deceit. It would not be honest. And yet—and yet—the girls would think she was queer. They would say she was mean and priggish, for she might have told Berta as easily as not.
There! the third girl from Berta was trying to explain her own ignorance and failing brilliantly. Now the second was stammering through a transparent bluff. Berta had settled back, coolly resigned to fate. How she must suffer, after having stooped to ask for aid! Poor Robbie Belle! Poor, lonely, disappointed Robbie Belle! For strange to say she flunked too and the question journeyed on triumphantly to the mathematical prodigy at the end of the row.
In the corridor outside Berta exerted her nimble self to overtake Miss Sanders, who was sidling away in a strikingly unprincesslike manner, her eyes shifting guiltily.
“So you didn’t know the answer either? Wasn’t that the biggest joke on me! And really, Miss Sanders, I beg your pardon for asking. It popped out before I could gather my wits. I am scared to death in that class, though of course that is no excuse for sponging. I’m glad you didn’t know it enough to tell me after all.”
Robbie Belle lifted the lashes from her flushed cheeks. “I—I did know it,” she said with a gulp.
“Oh!” said Berta, and stared, “how—how peculiar!”
Robbie Belle held back the tears till she had reached her room, seized her hat and snatched her thickest veil. Then she fled to the loneliest walk among the pines. Her veil was a rarity that rendered her an object of curiosity to everybody she passed on the way. But she hurried on, somewhat comforted by the conviction that no one could mark her reddened eyelids. In truth she had good need of comfort, for Berta Abbott herself had said that she was peculiar. And peculiar meant queer!