“In that case, why, in the name of Heaven, have I been asked over here?” cried Belle. “Is my precious time to be wasted?” Here she jumped up suddenly and confronted the two girls. In her agitation and anger her spectacles dropped from her nose; they fell with a crash on the floor, and one glass was broken.
“Now, what am I to do?” said Belle. “Oh, the irreparable injury you two girls have done me! One of my glasses is broken, and I, who have astigmatism in one eye, cannot get it mended in a hurry. It is cracked right across. Most fortunately I took the precaution to provide myself with another pair, or I should be lost, simply lost. Oh dear! what a wasted afternoon!”
“But can’t you tell us what you were going to say, even without seeing us very plainly?” said Eileen. “Do, Belle, sit down and be comfortable; tell us everything. We are not at all settled in our own minds as to what we will do yet. You have a room, and it is not ornamental. Well, we don’t care about ornamental rooms. This room is bare, is it not?”
“Bare! Do you call this a bare room?” cried Belle. “There are six chairs, for instance. Do you ever expect to entertain six people in the room where you work? In
addition to the six ordinary chairs there is an armchair. Who wants to loll in an armchair? There is also a bench on which I am now sitting. Tell me, is a bench necessary as well as six ordinary chairs and an armchair? Are four tables required? Is that carpet essential? Does it stimulate the brain to keep the feet upon a carpet? Are those thick curtains necessary—they are only traps to collect dirt. Blinds to the windows I grant are required, or people might stare in. Oh yes, I will allow blinds; they are necessary. Now I will tell you about my room. I have asked to be put in one of the attics. The house is very full, and the vice-principal of North Hall, Miss Penrose, was quite willing to oblige me. The attic was not furnished when I got it, and I begged and implored of her to allow me to furnish it in my own way. I have therefore a camp-bed in one corner, a particularly narrow one. There is a small, hard mattress on it; The counterpane is colored; it is dark-blue, and does not require to be washed often—that is one item off the mind. The mind, my dear girls—that is, the minds of those who are students at St. Wode’s College—have such deep problems to solve that they cannot be fretted by external worries. The minds of the real students must be left free to solve problems—the intricacies of Virgil, the great masterpieces of Homer, Dante in his magnificent original——”
Belle had now forgotten her auditors. She ceased staring at them, her glasses were useless, her eyes were dim; but nevertheless she herself was seeing visions.
Marjorie patted her on the arm.
“Go on, Belle, go on,” she said; “we will find out about Virgil and Homer and Dante presently. Now, what else have you in the room? You cannot live in a room that contains nothing but a camp-bed and a blind, and at present that is all you have admitted.”
“I have a desk, specially made for myself, in the window,” continued Belle; “there is a stool, a high stool, on which I sit. The stool has no back; I should scorn to lean back. I have a shelf on the wall which contains my books—my few books, twenty in all—standard works, mostly in the classics. Amongst them are to be found Polybius, Appian’s Civil War (Book 1.), Cicero’s Letters, Plato’s Republic, Bacon’s Novum Organum, Aristotle’s Politics, Locke On the Human Understanding, and——”
“Good gracious!”