“And we could buy rolls and things—”
Then they paused to consider it.
“Don’t most students do that sort of thing anyway?” I asked.
“It would be Bohemian,” said Leslie, in a more energetic voice than I’d heard her use before.
“And after we get famous they’ll photograph this ghastly hole, and say we lived here—” Viola added, with a far-away, pleased look.
“I’m willing to try it,” agreed Leslie, in a dull tone I felt she put on. “I don’t care much—what happens now, anyway!”
“Poor darling!” murmured Viola, and in that “Poor darling,” I saw the shadow of a row, for I knew that Viola couldn’t keep that up all the time, and I knew that when she stopped Leslie would be angry, and I knew that they were too foolishly and sentimentally intimate to remain good friends. However, I never dreamed for a second, then, that they would come to me to complain about each other! Which was just what they did!
It was dreadful for me; there was a time when I never went into my room without finding one or the other waiting to sniff out their tales, tales which they almost always prefaced in this way: “I never talk about my friends—” (sniff) “You can ask” (gulp) “any one where I do—” (sniff) “but I want you to know that I have never been treated—” (gulp-sniff) “as I have been treated since I came to this place in company—” (real sob) “with that—that creature!”
When I think of it now, and then that first call, I could, as Viola says, “Simply scream, my dear!”
But I’m getting ’way ahead of my own story.