“Oh, she won’t mind,” Marjorie assured confidently. “We’d better tell the others right away. You go and see Lucy. I’ll tell Leila and Muriel.”
“As soon as I put away this stuff from my suitcase,” Jerry promised. Her suitcase on the floor beside her couch, she had strewed the contents from one end of the bed to the other. “I suppose,” she began afresh, as she gathered up her toilet set and moved with it toward her chiffonier, “that I ought to——”
The speech remained unfinished. Suddenly and without warning the door opened. A young woman in an automobile dust coat and cap walked serenely in. At sight of the two startled occupants of the room she set her leather traveling bag down with a sharp, “Well; may I ask what you two girls are doing in my room?” The newcomer was Elizabeth Walbert.
“Your room? Since when?” Jerry had forgotten all about the icy stare with which she intended to freeze this very person. She was gazing at the intruder with belligerence, not hauteur. Her tone conveyed an ominous chill to the too-sure claimant.
“I don’t understand you,” she returned with a slight toss of her head. “I only know that I was assigned to this room by Miss Remson.”
“Did she come to the door of this room with you?” inquired Jerry bluntly.
“Certainly not. She assigned me to Room 16. You two have evidently made a mistake. I know I haven’t.” Another toss of the head, more disagreeably pronounced. “I didn’t need her or a maid to show me. I know this house.”
“The number of this room is 15. Miss Macy and I have had it for three years,” Marjorie broke in evenly. “You will find 16 across the hall. The numbers on this side of the hall are odd; on the other, even.”
“Oh!” The arrogant claimant turned poppy-red. Plainly in the wrong, Marjorie’s civil, utterly dispassionate information fell upon her ears as a merited rebuke. “I was told—” she began feebly. “I am sure the number over this door _looks_ like 16. This is the room I _wanted_. I beg your pardon. Still I don’t understand——”
In spite of the grudging apology she appeared only half convinced. Marjorie merely inclined her head without speaking. Jerry was silent from sheer disgust. The battery of two pairs of eyes full upon her proved too much for the intruder. She made a rather hurried exit, closing the door behind her with enough force to indicate a rise of temper.
