e, why
not vote her in? Lay the circumstances before the board, and they'll
elect her."

"Oh, no, they won't. The board is altogether too scrupulous and
idealistic this season to let personal feelings interfere. You're rather
new to office as yet. Mark my words and trust me: if Miss Brett
qualifies, she will be elected. I know--and that's why I wish she
wouldn't."

"There come the others. See that pile of manuscript. We'll be lucky if we
get away at midnight. I only hope nobody will ask me to compose a poem to
fill out a page; my head feels as if stuffed with sawdust."

Lucine turned her head slowly to watch the group of girls wander into the
office and light the gas amid a flutter of papers and dressing-gowns
mixed with sleepy yawns and tired laughter. Then some one shut the door.
Lucine was still sitting in the shadowy window-seat, her essay clutched
tightly in her hand.

After a minute she rose, walked toward the door, and lifted her arm as if
to knock. Then giving herself an impatient shake she swung around and
hurried down the corridor as far as the transverse. There she hesitated,
halted, half swerved to retrace her steps, stamped one foot down hard,
brought up the other beside it, and clenching both fists over the essay
fled from the neighborhood.

When she reached her room, she paused to listen. Hearing no sound she
slipped inside, threw the essay into a drawer, locked it, and put the key
in her pocket. Then after a wistful glance around she stooped to pick up
Laura's white tam from the couch, pressed it against her cheek for a
moment, and laid it gently in the empty little chair where Laura had sat
while listening to the essay that afternoon.

"Laura," she whispered, "I can't spare you, Laura. You shall come back
next year, and we shall room together again, you and I."

Without a backward look toward the drawer where the manuscript lay
buried, Lucine gathered up note-book and fountain-pen and departed for
the library. She walked slowly through the long apartment, glancing into
alcove after alcove only to find every chair occupied on both sides of
the polished tables that gleamed softly in the gaslight. Finally she
discovered one of the small movable steps that were used when a girl
wished to reach the highest shelf. Capturing it she carried it to the
farther end of a narrow recess between two bookcases and doubled her
angular length into a cozy heap for an evening with Shelley's poem of
"Prometheus Unb