"Why! you have!" cried the other. "I've always wanted to know you better. But the girls think you are offish."
"No, I see," returned Jennie. "But I understand you now. I wish you were in this room instead of Sally."
"And if you only were in Number 30, instead of Cora," spoke Nancy, out loud.
And upon the very echo of these words, a clear voice demanded:
"And will you tell me, Miss Nelson, how it is that _you_ are not in Number 30--your proper dormitory--at this hour of the night?"
Both girls sat up in bed as though worked with the same spring. They could not speak. Madame Schakael stood in the doorway.
The Madame's doll-like figure has been mentioned before in these chronicles. But to Nancy Nelson's excited imagination the principal of Pinewood Hall at this juncture seemed to swell--expand--develop--and actually fill the doorway of Number 40, West Side, with her unexpected presence!
Nancy couldn't speak for the moment. Even the lively Jennie Bruce's gayety was stifled in her throat.
"I hope you are not stricken dumb, Nancy," suggested the Madame, in the same low voice.
"Oh, Madame! forgive me!" gasped the culprit at last, and slipped out of bed.
"Right here, Madame," answered the frightened freshman, getting into them in a hurry.
"Well! stand there. Tell me why you are in the wrong room?"
"Oh, it isn't Jennie's fault--'deed it isn't, Madame!" gasped Nancy.
"I am not going to eat you, child," said the principal of the school, with some exasperation. "Having broken a rule, please stand up properly and answer my questions.
"Jennie--Jennie found me crying in the hall."
"Oh, no, ma'am," Nancy hastened to say. "I was not ill at all. Only I was--was lonely--and--and sorry--and----"
"Not altogether clear, Nancy," said the Madame; but her voice was lower and softer. "Tell me why you were crying in the hall?"
But now Nancy had begun to get a grip upon herself. She realized the position she was in. If she obeyed Madame Schakael's order she must "tell on" the girls then holding their orgie in Number 30.
"Do you hear me, Nancy?" asked Madame Schakael, firmly.
Nancy was silent for fully a minute, the Madame waiting without a sign of irritation.
"That--that, too, I cannot answer," said the miserable girl, at last.