"No—-it won't do to admit I'm wrong. I'm not, and I'll just let her find it out."
And having voiced this stern resolution, she flung herself down on the bed and, burying her face in the pillows, cried herself into a doze; while, separated from her by a thin partition of lath and plaster, Alma made up her new bed, and bedewed it with her doleful tears.
CHAPTER X
THE OGRE REAPPEARS
"Hope you haven't forgotten that you've bound yourself in an engagement with me for the theatre to-morrow, Nannie, old dear," called Charlotte from her customary location during leisure hours—namely the piano bench. "I've reserved seats for 'The Countess Betsey'—nice, light, loads of good Viennese tunes—nothing lofty about it. Miss Drinkwater had a cute little plan for us—wanted us to go to hear—or see—I don't know just what the right word is—some production of Euripides in the original. I said 'No'—very politely. Too politely perhaps—I had to repeat it three separate and distinct times. I explained to her that while I just adored Euripides, and loved nothing better than Greek as she is spoke, my constitution craved something a bit gayer than 'Medea'—in the original. I hinted modestly that I'd been overworking a bit lately—and that my mighty brain needed something that it didn't have to chew eighty-five times before swallowing. Aren't you going to thank me?"
"Oh, I do—thanks horribly," laughed Nancy. "Can't you see us sitting through a merry little Greek play, trying to weep in the right places, and not to laugh when everyone but the villainess had been stabbed or poisoned or fed to the lions?"
"Gee—but couldn't we be lofty when we got back?" said Charlotte. "I'd say, 'How sublime were those lines in Act II, Scene 4, where, in a voice thrilling with sublime hate, the frenzied woman shrieks "Logos Nike anthropos Socrates!"' And you would glow with fervor, and say 'Zoue mou sas agapo.' I tell you what, when it comes to dead languages——"
"It's too late, I hope, for you to get enthusiastic about the idea now," interrupted Nancy, firmly. "It wouldn't be a bit unlike you to get so carried away with it, that you'd suddenly change your mind about not going—and I'll tell you right now, that if you do I am emphatically not with you. I don't like to improve my mind when I'm on a holiday—and Saturdays come only once a week."
"You should thirst for every opportunity to improve your understanding," reproved Charlotte, who could chatter away like a magpie, while her nimble fingers never lost a note, or stumbled in the rhythm of the lively dance tune she was playing.