"Murder?" Dundee echoed, as if he had no idea what she was talking about.
"Haven't you been reading the papers?" Miss Earle rallied him, with a coquettish smile. "But I don't suppose Boston bothers with such sordid things," she added, her thin-lipped mouth tightening. "Miss Pendleton was all cut up about it, because Mrs. Selim, or Juanita Leigh, as she was known on Broadway, had directed our Easter play the last two years, and the reporters simply hounded us the first two days after she was murdered out in Hamilton, where a number of our richest girls have come from----"
"By Jove!" Dundee exclaimed. "Was the Selim woman connected with this school, really?... I only read the headlines--never pay much attention to murders in the papers--"
"I wish," Miss Earle interrupted tartly, fresh tears reddening her eyes, "that people wouldn't persist in referring to her as 'that Selim woman'.... When I think how sweet and friendly she was, how--how _kind_!" and to Dundee's surprise she choked on tears before she could go on: "Of course I know it's dreadful for the school, and I ought not to talk about it, when you've come to see about putting your sister into the school, but Nita was _my friend_, and it simply makes me _wild_----"
"You admired and liked her very much?" Dundee asked, forgetting his role for the moment.
"Yes, I did! And Miss Pendleton liked her, too. And you can imagine how clever and popular she was, when a wonderful woman like Mrs. Peter Dunlap, who was Lois Morrow when she was in school here, admired her so much she took her to Hamilton with her to direct plays for a Little Theater.... Why, I never met anyone I was so congenial with!" the secretary went on passionately. "The girls here snub me and make silly jokes about me behind my back and call me nicknames, but Nita was just as sweet to me as she was to anyone--even Miss Pendleton herself!"
"Were you with her much?" Dundee dared ask.
"_With her much?..._ I should say I was!" she asserted proudly. "I have a room here, live here the year 'round, and both years Nita shared my room, so she would not have to make the long trip back to New York every night during the last week of rehearsals. We used to talk until two or three o'clock in the morning--Say!" she broke off, in sudden terror. "You aren't a reporter, are you?"