That evening Robbie sat down to study for the Latin test announced for the next day. Miss Cutter was studying, too, harder than ever. The green shade was pulled so fiercely forward that a fringe of hair stood up in a crown where the elastic had rumpled it. Her grammar, lexicon and text-book occupied most of the table, but Robbie did not complain. She could manage very well by laying her books, one on the open face of another, in her lap. For once she was grateful that an Engaged sign shielded them from interruptions, for Latin was her shakiest subject, especially the rules of indirect discourse. The instructor had warned the class that this weak spot was to be the point of attack. If Robbie Belle should not succeed in drumming the rules into her head before the ideas in it began to spin around and around in their usual dizzy fashion when she waxed sleepy, she might just as well stay away from the recitation room. Or better perhaps, for in absence there was a possibility of both doubt and hope: hope on Robbie Belle’s part that she might have been able to answer the questions if she had been there, on the teacher’s part doubt concerning the exact extent of the pupil’s knowledge.
At the end of the corridor just outside their door a narrow stairway led to the north tower rooms on the floor above. Beatrice Leigh and Lila Allan and a number of their liveliest friends lived up there on the fifth, with Berta Abbott at the foot of the stairs near Robbie’s place of abode.
Just as Robbie’s usually serene brow was puckering its hardest over the sequence of tenses, a door banged open in the tower and the stairs creaked under swift clatter of feet—a dozen at the very least.
Miss Cutter scowled beneath the green shade; Robbie Belle could tell that from the way the fringe of upright hair vibrated.
“Savages!” she muttered, “they’ll tear the building to pieces. No wonder the newspapers report that the college girl’s favorite mode of locomotion is sliding down the banisters.”
“No,” said Robbie Belle, “not that. They take hold of the railing and jump several steps at a time. I’ve seen them. Miss Leigh says she does it for exercise.”
“And this also is exercise!” Miss Cutter clutched her ears as a tornado swept past their threshold.
Robbie bent to listen anxiously. “They’re going to the ice-cooler,” she said, “pretty soon they will go back again.”
“Yes,” said Miss Cutter as she rose and moved toward the door, “they will doubtless go back, and doubtless also they shall go in a different manner.”
Then she went out and remonstrated briefly but to the point. Whereupon the culprits apologized with noble profusion and tiptoed their way to the stairs. This would have been an admirable proof of repentance if their heels had not persisted in coming down on the bare boards in very loud clicks at very short intervals. And every click was greeted by a reproving chorus of “Sh-sh-sh!”