Before Miss Drexal had completed her change of gown, Blanche rose and walked to the door. “I am going to Ruth’s room,” she announced. She was bent on getting away, lest the registrar should ask questions which she could not truthfully answer. She preferred not to commit herself to anything which might afterward involve her in a mesh of difficulties.
Admitted to Ruth’s room by Emmy, she found the three girls had begun the overhauling of their steamer trunks.
“It’s a good thing for us these trunks came,” congratulated Marian. From a kneeling position before her own, she looked up and nodded brightly. “What time did they get here, Blanche?”
This being one of the very questions Blanche was trying to evade, it stumped her for an instant. Quickly rallying, she drawled, “I’m not sure. While I was asleep, perhaps, or maybe while I was out walking. I didn’t ask Martha. I—well—I haven’t seen her since this morning.”
“Didn’t you have any luncheon?” Emmy turned abruptly from the chiffonier drawer, which she was filling with the soft silk blouses she usually wore in preference to the heavy white middies.
“No. I didn’t want any. I—that is—Martha understood she needn’t get me any luncheon.”
“You must be hungry by this time,” observed Marian. “Never mind, it will soon be dinner time. Jane and Frances are the cooks to-night. I hope Martha can hear herself think.”
“Will you sit down, Blanche?” Thus far Ruth had refused to look at the caller. Her eyes fixed steadily on the tray of her trunk, she was wondering dejectedly what she ought to do.
“No, thank you.” Deep in her own problem, Blanche failed to mark the note of constraint in Ruth’s voice. “Would you mind coming to my room, Ruth?” She had made a swift resolve to ask Ruth to find out from Martha when the trunks had arrived; also if the latter had kept strictly away from her door, and what she had said about the message Ruth had delivered. It would be easy to further impress on Ruth that it was necessary to know these things in order to keep secret her pretended consideration toward Miss Drexal.
“I’ll be with you in a minute.” Unwittingly, Blanche had opened to Ruth the way she dreaded and yet felt was the only right one. Her pleasant face set in determined lines, Ruth turned from her trunk and followed Blanche to the door.