Outside on the shadowy stairway Berta gave a little squeal of pain. “Ouch! You’re pinching me black and blue! Why, Bea, Bea Leigh, whatever in the world——”
A packet of white, bound with an elastic, went flying through the air, to fall with a rustling plop into the half-empty caldron. An inquisitive senior going out to investigate spied only the deserted stairs, and heard nothing but four scampering feet on the corridor overhead. Saint Valentine, with a voice that dropped lower and lower into a muffled murmur, read her own name fifteen times in succession, and blushed rose-pink, from gray beard to powdered hair, while the other seniors laughed and laughed.
Two minutes after the valentines had been counted and the result announced Bea was waltzing about Berta’s room, with that unwilling captive in her arms.
“Ho! Who says your senior is more popular than my senior now?” she jeered. “Who won that time, I want to know?”
“Before I’d have a senior who sends valentines to herself!” grumbled Berta wickedly, to the ceiling.
“Ho!” chanted shameless Bea. “I knew it was a mistake all along. That’s the reason I didn’t tear up my valentines.”
“Yes?” commented Miss Berta, with an inflection so maddening that in three seconds she was fleeing for her life.