A few minutes later Laura entered noiselessly and stopped short at sight of the crouching form with shoulders that rose and fell over a long quivering sob. Laura took one step toward her, next two away; finally setting her teeth resolutely she glided softly across the room and patted the bent, dark head. For an instant Lucine lay motionless; then with a swift hungry gesture she reached out her arms and swept the younger girl close to her heart.
“Laura, I can’t spare you, I can’t spare you. You are all I have. Forgive me and let me try again. It is an evil spirit that made me talk that way. And, oh, Laura, dear, I want you to like me better than you like Berta. I need you more.”
Laura put up her mouth in child-fashion for a kiss of reconciliation. “I like you both,” she said, and freeing herself gently stooped to pick up the loose leaves of the essay. “Shall we go on with revising this now, Lucine? It is due this evening, you know. The board meets at eight in the magazine sanctum.”
Lucine watched her with a wistfulness that softened to tenderness the faint lines of native selfishness about her mouth. “Laura, I want you to room with me next year. We can choose a double with a study and adjoining bedrooms. It will make me so happy. Do you know, last autumn when I lived in the main building and you away off in the farthest dormitory, I used to sit in a corridor window every morning to watch for you. I care more for you than for any one else. I shall teach you to care most for me next year.”
Laura seemed to have extraordinary trouble in capturing the last sheet, for it fluttered away repeatedly from her grasp and she kept bending to reach it again. Lucine could not see her face.
“Will you,” she repeated, “will you room with me next year, Laura?”
Laura coughed and made another wild dive in pursuit of the incorrigible paper. “Let’s not talk about next year,” she mumbled uncomfortably, “it is so far off and ever so many things may happen before June. Of course,” she faltered and swallowed something in her throat, “I’d love to room with you, if—if I can. But now we must hurry with this essay.”
“Well, remember that I have asked you first,” said Lucine, “and I can’t spare you.”
Laura said nothing.
After the essay had been read and discussed by Laura whose critical insight was much keener than Lucine’s, the older girl settled herself to rewrite the article before evening. Dinner found her still at her desk, fingers inky, hair disordered, collar loosened in the fury of composition. In reply to Laura’s urgent summons to dress, she paused long enough to push back a lock that had fallen over her brow.