It had only taken a second of time, but even in that second fresh tragedy had been added. The wig was a beautiful golden blonde!
"Quick, give me the powder," Miss Marlowe was saying. "Somebody get the charcoal; we'll have to streak it a bit to make it grey."
Judith managed to get charcoal before any one else, and then said desperately,
"It's my fault as much as Josephine's, Miss Marlowe--more mine, for Patricia told me to be sure to remind Josephine."
"You, Judith?" said Miss Marlowe coldly. "I AM surprised,"--and she wasted no more time on Judith, who went away feeling that she could never be happy again.
Judith didn't go back to Nancy, she wanted to be alone. Her humiliation was very real--not because she had forgotten, though it HAD hurt her pride to think that she had been careless. But there was a deeper hurt than that--she had actually hesitated to take her share of the blame, in spite of precept and example in her home, and here this year at York Hill. She had almost done something quite dishonourable.
"They'd despise me if they knew," thought Judith, crouching down behind some scenery and wishing that she could run away instead of waiting to help. "Why, oh, why do I make so many mistakes and fail so often? But I won't--I won't let that horrid little Top Self conquer"--and, interested in the working of her own mind, she paused a moment to consider how curious it was that all those faces should rise to aid her just when she needed them--"Seemed almost as if they WERE Deep-Down Self--but of course they couldn't be, because that's me--but it's queer--they seemed like a part of me too--"
Just then Catherine on her way to the stage caught sight of Judith, a crumpled little heap behind the screen. She hadn't a moment, but she took one, nevertheless, to stop and pat the back of Judith's neck--her face she couldn't see--and say affectionately, "Never mind, Judy, dear--we all forget sometimes--you're O.K. really."
Just a moment--but it brought Judith up out of her gloom.
"Dear old Cathy," she said to herself as she scrambled up to watch the heroine make her entrance, "she's a brick, a real brick--I'll NEVER do anything I'd be ashamed to tell her about."
"Hullo!" whispered Nancy; "come on over here and you can see better--what's the matter?"