CHAPTER XIII.
THE DROP OF POISON.
Molly was very proud of her first newspaper article and exultant at being able to answer the unjust libels of Miss Slammer. She could scarcely wait to tell Nance and Judy about it, but decided to drop in at the infirmary and relate her triumph to the Professor if it was possible to see him. Alice Fern was on guard that morning, however, and the Swiss Guards at the Vatican could not have been more formidable.
"I'm sure the Pope of Rome doesn't live a more secluded life," thought Molly as she departed.
Glancing at the tower clock, Molly saw that she still had three quarters of an hour before the lecture on early Victorian Poets by the Professor of English Literature from Exmoor, who came over several times a week to substitute for Professor Green.
"I think I'll run in and see Otoyo a few minutes," Molly said to herself. "The girls can wait. There's been something queer about Otoyo lately. She keeps to herself like a little sick animal. I can't make her out at all."
There was no response to Molly's knock on Otoyo's door a few minutes later, and, after a pause, she opened the door and peeped in.
The blinds had been drawn, an unwonted thing with the little Japanese, who usually let the sunlight flood her room through unshaded windows. But a shaft of light from the open door disclosed her seated cross-legged on the floor in front of a beautiful screen showing Fujiyama, the sacred Japanese mountain. At the foot of the screen she had placed two statues, one of Saint Anthony of Padua and one of Saint Francis of Assisi, presents from Mr. and Mrs. Murphy on two successive Christmases. And still another graven image caught Molly's eye as she tiptoed into the room: a small figure of Buddha seated cross-legged. He was placed at a little distance from the two saints and his antique, blurred countenance contrasted strangely with the delicately molded and tinted faces of the new statues.
If Molly had come unannounced upon Nance on her knees or Judy at her devotions, she would have beat a hasty retreat, but it came to her that Otoyo, sitting there cross-legged before the images of strange gods, needed help of some sort.
"You aren't angry with me for coming in, Otoyo?" she began. "I knocked and you didn't hear. I'm afraid something is the matter. Won't you let me help you? I have not forgotten how you helped me once when I was unhappy. Don't you remember how you let me sit in your room and think over my troubles that Sunday afternoon at Queen's?"
Otoyo rose quickly, flushing a little under her dark skin. She seemed very foreign to Molly at that moment, in her beautiful embroidered kimono of black and gold. Also she seemed very formal in her manner and distant, like an exiled princess who still clings to the dignity of her former position.