“Don’t you dare ‘holy’ me!” she cried.
In real irritation Helene released herself.
“I’m no chorus girl,” she said coldly.
With a shrill little scream of pain, Rae Malgregor’s hands went flying back to her temples. Like a person giving orders in a great panic, she turned authoritatively to her two room-mates, her fingers all the while boring frenziedly into her temples.
“Now, girls,” she warned, “stand well back! If my head bursts, you know, it’s going to burst all slivers and splinters, like a boiler.”
“Rae, you’re crazy,” hooted Zillah.
“Just plain vulgar—loony,” faltered Helene.
Both girls reached out simultaneously to push her aside.
Somewhere in the dusty, indifferent street a bird’s note rang out in one wild, delirious ecstasy of untrammeled springtime. To all intents and purposes the sound might have been the one final signal that Rae Malgregor’s jangled nerves were waiting for.
“Oh, I am crazy, am I?” she cried, with a new, fierce joy. “Oh, I am crazy, am I? Well, I’ll go ask the Superintendent and see if I am. Oh, surely they wouldn’t try and make me graduate if I really was crazy!”