With these thoughts battering at the foolish pride in their hearts it would have taken only a whispered word to send the sisters into one another's embrace, but the reconciliation for which they were both longing so piteously was postponed by an incident which threatened to make their quarrel even more serious. It was simply the outcome of an unfortunate chance. For some time both the girls had known that Miss Leland had planned to give them different roommates, since she thought it a good idea for sisters to be separated so that they could make closer friendships with other girls.
After dinner she spoke of this again, not to Nancy but to Alma, leaving it to the younger girl to announce the change to Nancy. She had, of course, no knowledge of their quarrel, nor could she have possibly gauged the unfortunate timing of the change.
Nancy went up to her room directly after dinner, not waiting for the usual hour of music and dancing, and giving as her excuse the pretense that she had some mending to do.
She did, indeed, get out her work-basket as a sort of defense against unwelcome intrusion, but with a stocking drawn over her hand, she sat with her back to the door, and gave herself up to the sad consolation of tears. In a little while the door opened. Someone came in. Nancy bent over her stocking, and began to run a threadless needle through a "Jacob's-ladder"; from the corner of her eye she saw Alma busily engaged in taking some of her things out of the bureau-drawers. Alma was as painstaking in keeping her own face concealed as Nancy, though she tried to hum a tune under her breath. The silence became intolerable, but diffidence weighted their tongues. Each one of them longed to throw her pride to the winds and sue for a reconciliation; but the fear of having her overtures met with coldness held her back. At length Alma said in a voice which she vainly tried to make natural and casual:
"Miss Leland has changed us. Charlotte Spencer is going to be your roommate from now on—and—and I'm going in with—with Mildred."
"That's—a—a good idea," replied Nancy; sarcasm was a thousand miles from her mind, and she spoke really only for the sake of sounding as if all differences had been forgotten; but a more ill-chosen sentence could not have fallen from her lips.
"I suppose—you—you're glad to be rid of me," said Alma, her lips quivering. "Anyway, you'll have Charlotte, and she's ever so much more congenial with you than I am."
Nancy did not answer. If Alma had not made that last reference to Charlotte she would have had Nancy back in a moment, but there is a little devil who takes a delight in twisting people's tongues when they most need to be inspired with the right thing to say.
With her night-gown and dressing-gown over her arm, and her sponge-bag in her hand, Alma walked in silence to the door. There she paused, and like Lot's wife flung back at Nancy one piteous parting look, which, alas, met only the back of Nancy's down-bent head. The door closed.
Nancy sprang up, and crossed the room, running, while the spools from her overturned basket rolled off placidly under the bed. Then she paused; pride conquered the tenderness in her heart at that moment, bringing in its trail a sequence of unhappy days.