They sought the room where the housekeeper ran cups of tea from the tap of a large and funereal bronze urn.
It was ten minutes to five when Louie entered the dining-room. Before the clock had struck five she had taken a certain position in the college.
She herself hardly knew how it happened. The room was full of noise and chatter, and near Louie, talking louder and making more noise than anybody else, was a lanky child of sixteen, to be a tall blonde beauty in another three or four years' time, but so far only a mass of unadjusted proportions and movements that lacked co-ordination. She had several distinct voices, and in one of these she was now engaged in unabashed mimicry. Louie, who had got her cup of tea, heard a bell-like "Os-trich feathers!" and she was about to put a question to the copper-haired girl when, with a mock reverence and an explosive "Your Ma-jesty!" the child swept backwards into her. She barely saved her cup of tea. The girl gave a quick turn; her Clum—" was changed to a "Sorry!" as she saw a new face, and Louie smiled.
"Your feet were all wrong," Louie said.
The blonde child turned eagerly again.
"Can you do it?" she asked.
The next moment, before Louie could get out "A drawing-room curtsy? Yes," the child had cried: "Girls! Girls! Here's somebody who knows how to do it! Do come and show us!"
"Really?" said Louie, smiling, and handing her cup of tea to the copper-haired girl.
"Yes—come here, Rhoda, and watch (that's my sister—she's to be presented, you know)."
Louie laughed. "Quickly then—I have to see Miss Chesson——"