"Indeed, Stacey Fitz Simmons, I never change my mind--never."
Professor Waite raised the _portière_ for her to pass. "You are very cruel," he murmured.
"You will thank me for this some day," she said, and the curtain of an impenetrable fate fell between them.
Milly seized my arm a few moments later. "I don't understand it at all," she said, "but Adelaide has certainly refused Professor Waite. I met him just now in the hall, and he glared at me like a maniac. I was positively afraid of him. I ran in to speak to Adelaide, but others had entered before me, and she only took my hand and squeezed it tight, while she talked with the Bishop. And Tib, she was as white as a sheet."
While making allowances for Milly's exaggerations, it seemed probable to me that her deductions were correct. Something unusual had happened, for when we went to our rooms we found that Adelaide had already retired for the night, and had taken Cynthia's empty room, leaving a note for Milly saying that she had a headache and would rather be alone.
If we had known, Milly and I, that Adelaide had put from her a love whose dearness she only realized after its sacrifice, we might have saved her years of heroic self-abnegation, and so have frustrated God's plan for making her a resolute, generous, and noble character.
But we did not know it, and the two girls who loved each other so dearly looked into each other's eyes at parting, and thought that they read each other's souls there, and yet misunderstood the reading as completely as if they had been utter strangers.
It was fortunate, shall we not say providential, that Adelaide occupied Cynthia's room that night, and that she was so disturbed that she could not sleep? for toward morning she noticed a bright light shining through the transom over the door. Her first thought was that the thief was at work at the cabinet, and stealing cautiously from her bed she peered through the key-hole. There was no one near the cabinet, and throwing on a wrapper she softly opened the door. The room was vacant and the light which she had noticed streamed in from the window. On looking out what was her horror to see that the rear of the house was in flames. The fire had originated in the kitchen, and was making its way toward the front of the building. Her presence of mind did not desert her. She stepped to Milly's room, wakened her gently and told her what was the matter, and then her clear voice rang out, "Fire, fire!" as she hastened to Madame's room, sounding the telegraphic alarm in the corridor as she went. How differently people behave during a crisis like this! With the exception of Adelaide, I think we all lost our wits to a certain extent. Milly, although wakened so gently, was quite frightened out of hers. She dressed herself with extreme deliberation, heating her curling irons in the gas jet and crimping her bangs very prettily. She put on one high-buttoned boot and one Louis Seize slipper, but was particular about her gloves--fastening every button--and came to me to be helped with her graduation dress, which laced in the back.