“Say it again,” counseled the other’s calm voice. “I am so provoked at myself for jumping at every little noise! It is shameful to have so little control over my own nerves even if I am tired. Ah! what was that?”
“Jump again,” advised Ethelwynne in a tone that was meant to be serene but proved rather jerky. “It was nothing but my teeth chattering and clicking together.”
“Generally it’s your tongue,” retorted Agnes with interest but broke off in this promising repartee to exclaim with genuine anxiety, “Why, Wynnie, child, you have a regular chill. Lie down quick and let me cover you up. Have you been out skating ever since I left you on the lake?”
“Yes, I have,” she replied with an air of defiance, “you needn’t preach. I couldn’t bear to come in. Everybody out. We had square dances, shinney-on-the-ice, wood tag. Perfectly glorious! Such a splendid elegant sunset behind the bare trees! I simply had to stay. Beatrice Leigh and her crowd were there. A big moon came sailing up. We skated to music—somebody whistled it. I couldn’t bear to stop. I wanted to stay, I tell you. I wanted to stay.”
“Hm-m,” said Agnes, “I wanted to stay too. But what with the Latin test to-morrow and this plate for the book on fungi to be sent off in the morning, I managed to tear myself away.”
“You’re different. Oo-oo-ooh!” Ethelwynne shivered violently again. “You like to deny yourself. You enjoy discipline. It gives you pleasure to do what you hate. You love duty just because it is disagreeable.”
“My—land!” Agnes clutched her own head. “The infant must have slipped up a dozen times too often. Did the horrid bad ice smite her at the base of the brain? Poor little darling! Is her intellect all mixedy-muddle-y? We will fix it right for her. We’ll give her a pill.”
“I think I have caught cold,” moaned her roommate from the depths of the blankets.
Agnes looked judicial. “Our doctor at home has a theory that people take cold easily when they have been eating too much sweet stuff. He says that colds are most frequent after Thanksgiving. Now I wonder—I believe—why, you surely did go to a meeting of the fudge-club in Martha’s room last night. Ethelwynne, did you eat it? Did you eat it even after all the doctor said to you about your sick headaches?”
“Of course I ate it. How do you expect me to sit hungry in a roomful of girls all digging into that plateful of brown delicious soft hot fudge with their little silver spoons, and I not even tasting it? I hated to make myself conspicuous before the juniors there. They would think I am a hypochondriac, and Berta Abbott might have said something to make the others look at me and laugh. I don’t believe the stuff hurts me a particle. Doctors always want you to give up the things you like best.”