Kitabı oku: «Marjorie Dean, College Freshman», sayfa 6

CHAPTER XI. – SETTLING DOWN AT WAYLAND HALL

“Yes; to be sure. I have the correspondence from all of you Sanford girls. I think there has been no mistake concerning your rooms. Just a moment.”

Miss Remson, a small, wiry-looking woman with a thin, pleasant face and partially gray hair, bustled to a door, situated at the lower end of the room. Thrown open, it disclosed a small, inner apartment, evidently doing duty as the manager’s office. Seating herself before a flat-topped oak desk, she opened an upper drawer and took from it a fat, black, cloth-covered book. Consulting it, she rose and returned with it in her hand.

“Miss Dean and Miss Macy made application for one room together, Miss Harding for a single room, provided a classmate, who expected to enter Wellesley, did not change her mind in favor of Hamilton. In that case she would occupy the room with Miss Harding. Miss Lynne applied for a single and afterward made request that Miss Warner might share it with her. Am I correct?”

The manager spoke in an alert tone, looking up with a slight sidewise slant of her head that reminded Marjorie of a bird.

“That is the way we meant it to be. I hope there have been no changes in the programme.” Jerry had constituted herself spokesman.

“None, whatever. I have a request to make of Miss Harding.” Unerringly she picked out Muriel, though Marjorie had only gone over their names to her once by way of general introduction. “Would you be willing to take a room-mate? We have so many applications for Wayland Hall to which we simply can pay no attention save to return the word ‘no room.’ This particular application of which I speak has been made by a junior, Miss Hortense Barlow. She was at Wayland Hall during her freshman year, but left here to room with a friend at Acasia House during her sophomore year. Her friend was a junior then and was therefore graduated last June. Miss Barlow is most anxious to return to this house.”

Muriel looked rather blank at this disclosure. She was not at all anxious for a room-mate, unless it were a Lookout, which was out of the question.

“I hardly know yet whether I should care to take a room-mate,” she said, with a touch of hesitation. “I will decide tonight and let you know tomorrow morning. Will that be satisfactory?”

“Perfectly, perfectly,” responded Miss Remson, and waved her hand as though urbanely to dismiss the subject. “I will show you young women to your rooms myself. Dinner, this week, is from a quarter to seven until a quarter to eight.” She repeated the information already given them by Helen Trent. “That means that no one will be admitted to the dining room after a quarter to eight. We are making special allowances now on account of returning students.”

With this she led the way out of the reception room and up the stairs. Down the hall of the second story she went, with a brisk little swishing of her black taffeta skirt that reminded Marjorie more then ever of a bird. At the last door on the left of the hall she paused.

“This is the room Miss Lynne and Miss Warner are to occupy,” she announced. “Directly across find the room Miss Macy and Miss Dean are to occupy.” She turned abruptly and indicated the door opposite. “Miss Harding’s room is on the third floor. I will conduct you to it, Miss Harding. I trust you will like your new quarters, young ladies, and be happy in them.”

Immediately she turned with “Follow me, Miss Harding,” and was off down the hall. It was a case of go without delay or lose her guide. Making a funny little grimace behind the too-brisk manager’s back, Muriel called, “See you later,” and set off in haste after Miss Remson. She had already reached the foot of the staircase leading to the third story.

“She’s the busiest busybody ever, isn’t she?” remarked Jerry. Marjorie, Ronny and Lucy at her back, she opened the door of her room and stepped over the threshold. “Hmm!” she next held forth. “This place may not be the lap of luxury, but it is not so bad. I don’t see my pet Circassian walnut set or my dear comfy old window seat, with about a thousand, more or less, nice downy pillows. Still it’s no barn. I only hope those couch beds are what they ought to be, a place on which to sleep. They’re more ornamental to a room than the regulation bed. I suppose that’s why they’re here.”

“Stop making fun of things, you goose, and let’s get the dust washed off our hands and faces before we go down to dinner. I am smudgy, and also very hungry, and it is almost seven o’clock,” Marjorie warned. “We haven’t a minute to lose. A person as methodical as Miss Remson would close the dining room door in our faces if we were a fraction of a minute late.”

“Don’t doubt it. Good-bye.” Veronica made a dive for her quarters followed by Lucy.

“You and I will certainly have to hurry,” agreed Jerry, as she returned from the lavatory nearly twenty minutes later. Marjorie, who had preceded her, was just finishing the redressing of her hair. It rippled away from her forehead and broke into shining little curls about her ears and at the nape of her neck. Her eyes bright with the excitement of new surroundings and her cheeks aglow from her recent ablutions, her loveliness was startling.

“I won’t have time to do my hair over again,” Jerry lamented. “It will have to go as it is. Are you ready? Come on, then. We’ll stop for Ronny and Lucy. What of Muriel? Last seen she was piking off after Miss Busy Buzzy. Hasn’t she the energy though? B-z-z-z-z! Away she goes. I hope she never hears me call her that. I might go to the foot of the stairway and howl ‘Muriel’ but that would hardly be well-bred.”

“She will probably stop for us. You can’t lose Muriel.” Marjorie was still smiling over Jerry’s disrespectful name for the manager. “For goodness’ sake, Jerry, be careful about calling her that. Don’t let it go further than among the Five Travelers. We understand that it is just your funny self. If some outsider heard it and you tried to explain yourself – well, you couldn’t.”

“I know that all too well, dear old Mentor. I’ll be careful. Don’t worry about me, as little Charlie Stevens says after he has run away and Gray Gables has been turned upside down hunting him. I presume that is Muriel now.” A decided rapping sent Jerry hurrying to the door. About to make some humorous remark to Muriel concerning her late hasty disappearance, she caught herself in time. Three girls were grouped outside the door but they were not the expected trio of Lookouts.

CHAPTER XII. – UNEXPECTED CALLERS

“Good evening,” Jerry managed to say politely, amazed though she was at the unlooked-for callers.

“Good evening,” came the prompt response from the foremost girl, spoken in a cool velvety tone that somehow suggested patronage. “Are you Miss Dean?”

“No, I am Miss Macy. Miss Dean is my room-mate. She is here. Will you come in?”

“Thank you.” The caller stepped into the room, her two companions at her heels. She was a young woman of about the same height as Marjorie and not unlike her in coloring, save that her eyes were a bluish gray, shaded by long dark lashes, her eyebrows heavily marked. Her hair, a paler brown than Marjorie’s, suggested in arrangement a hairdresser’s art rather than that of natural beauty, pleasing though the coiffure was. Her frock of pale pink and white effects in silk net and taffeta was cut short enough of sleeve and low enough of neck to permit the white shapeliness of her arms and shoulders to be seen. While her features might be called regular, a close observer would have pronounced her mouth, in repose, a shade too small for the size of her face, and her chin a trifle too pointed.

Standing as she was where the electric lights, which Jerry had recently switched on, played upon her, she made an undeniably attractive picture. Marjorie recognized her instantly as the girl she had seen driving the gray car. One of her companions was a small, dark girl with very black eyes and a sulky mouth. She was wearing a gown of Nile green pongee, heavily trimmed with expensive ecru lace. It gave her the appearance of being actually weighed down. The third of the callers Marjorie took an instant dislike toward. She represented a type of girl that Marjorie had rarely seen and never encountered at Sanford High School.

While her companions were attired in evening frocks, she was wearing a sports suit of a white woolly material that was a marvel as to cut and finish. The white silk velour sports hat, the heavy white silk stockings and fine, stitched buckskin ties that completed her costume were the acme of distinctive expense. Despite her carefully chosen apparel, she was very near to possessing an ugliness of face and feature which no amount of smart clothes could mitigate. Her hair, such as could be seen of it from under her hat, was coarse and black. Small, shrewd brown eyes, which had a trick of half closing, high cheek bones, a rather retroussé nose and a large, loose-lipped mouth completed an outer personality that Marjorie found unprepossessing in the extreme. Last of the three to enter the room, she had closed the door and now stood almost lounging against it, eyeing Marjorie with a smile that suggested bored tolerance.

“I am Marjorie Dean.” Immediately she heard her name, Marjorie had come forward. She guessed that the girl of the gray car had come to offer an apology for her non-appearance. Memory furnishing her with the spokesman’s name, she held out her hand courteously, saying: “Your are Miss Weyman, are you not? Won’t you and your friends sit down?”

Into Natalie Weyman’s darkening eyes flared an expression of affronted surprise. The little dark girl also showed surprise, while the girl in the sports suit drew down the corners of her wide mouth as though she had heard something funny but dared not laugh outright.

“Yes, I am Natalie Weyman.” Whatever her thoughts were her tones were still velvety. “I am a sophomore and these are my sophy pals, Miss Vale and Miss Cairns.” She indicated first the small girl, then the lounger. Both sophomores bowed nonchalantly and lightly clasped the hand Marjorie extended to each in turn.

“This is my room-mate and very dear friend, Geraldine Macy.” Marjorie now took her turn at introducing.

Jerry bowed and shook hands with the trio, but exhibited no enthusiasm. She was inwardly raging at them for having chosen a time so inopportune for making a call. She felt like shouting out in a loud, terrifying voice: “Have you had your dinner? Well, we haven’t had ours. Now beat it, all of you!”

Introductions over, the callers sat down. Miss Weyman dropped gracefully into the nearest easy chair, of which the room could count two. The others seated themselves, side by side, on one of the couch beds. Hardly had they done so when a second rapping was heard. This time it was Veronica, Lucy and Muriel. Marjorie opened the door and said quickly: “Come in, girls. I wish you to meet three members of the sophomore class who have done us the honor to call.”

Involuntarily Veronica’s eloquent eyebrows went up in surprise. Lucy’s green eyes took on a peculiar gleam, and Muriel felt displeasure rising within her. It seemed too bad that, after being neglected, they should be thus sought before they had had time to get their dinner. The long ride on the train had left them hungry. Still, there was nothing to be done save make the best of it. How long the callers had been in Marjorie’s and Jerry’s room, Muriel could not know. If they took prompt leave the Sanford five could still get into the dining room before it closed. It was twenty minutes to eight. She had looked at her watch while Ronny was rapping on the door.

After further introductions Miss Weyman said sweetly: “I have an apology to make Miss Dean. Consider it as being made to all of you. I was to meet you at the train today, and unfortunately I started a little later than I had intended. I belong to a club which a few of the freshmen started last year. All the girls who are members were friends of mine before I entered Hamilton. We attended a very private preparatory school and entered college together. We call ourselves the San Soucians and our club is limited to eighteen members. We do not intend to pass it on after we are graduated from Hamilton. It is really only a little social club of our own. Of course, we try to be considerate toward the other students here, as in the case of welcoming the freshmen.”

“Every one was so perfectly sweet to us last year when we entered Hamilton.” Miss Vale now raised a voice in the conversation. “You see we came from New York to Hamilton in my father’s private car. My father is president of the L. T. and M. Railroad. We had not thought much about being met at the train by the upper classmen. I wish you might have seen the crowd that was there to meet us! Girls from all three classes turned out. We had a smart old celebration, I can tell you.” Her sulky mouth lost its droop as she went on to describe boastingly the glories of that particular reception. She ended with: “What prep. school do you come from?”

Informed by Jerry that the Five Travelers were graduated from high school, she glanced pityingly about the Sanford group, and subsided with: “I really know nothing at all about high schools. I did not suppose you could enter college from one.”

“Of course one can.” Veronica spoke with an energy that her friends understood, if the callers did not. “Let me ask you a question. Were you obliged to try entrance examinations to Hamilton College?”

“Ye – s.” The reply came a little slowly.

“We are not obliged to take examinations. The senior course in our high school comprises collegiate subjects. Our diplomas will admit us to any college in the United States. So you see that high school has at least that advantage,” Ronny concluded evenly.

“I have heard that some of those high schools are really excellent,” drawled Miss Cairns. “I have heard too that they turn out a lot of digs and prigs. Girls, you understand, that have to get all they can out of high school because college is out of the question for them. I feel sorry for them. I never knew any of that sort, though. In fact, you are the first high school girls I have ever met. What?” She turned to Natalie Weyman.

The latter, however, was paying little attention to the conversation. Her gaze had rested almost uninterruptedly on Marjorie since she had entered the room. From the discomfited lieutenant’s lovely face to her slender, graceful figure, clothed in a one-piece frock of dark blue crêpe de chine, the other girl’s eyes wandered, only to turn themselves away for a moment, then begin a fresh inspection.

Meanwhile time was flying, the Five Travelers were growing minutely hungrier, yet the visitors made no move to go. Miss Weyman had gone no further than to explain that she had started for the train a little late. This apology did not coincide with what Helen Trent had said. None of the Lookouts had forgotten her remarks on the subject. It was in each girl’s mind that she preferred to believe Helen. This did not argue well as to a future friendship with Natalie Weyman. None of them could endure even the shadow of untruth.

“Please pardon me for breaking into my apology with an explanation of our club.” Her inspection of Marjorie over for the present, Natalie returned to the original object of her call. “I meant to say that by the time I had reached the station you had gone on to Wayland Hall, I suppose.”

“We drove away from the station in a taxicab just as your car drove into the yard.” Muriel fixed the lamely apologetic sophomore with a steady gaze. Her brown eyes appeared to be taking the other’s measure.

“Did you, indeed,” Natalie returned somewhat hastily. It was beginning to dawn upon her that she did not in the least like any of these freshmen. They were entirely too independent to suit her. Recalling that which she had been aching to ask when Marjorie had asked her if she were Miss Weyman, she now questioned almost rudely: “How did you know who I was when you saw me at the station?”

“We did not know who you were then,” explained Muriel. “We merely saw a gray car full of girls. Miss Macy said it looked like a French car. Afterward, we met a delightful sophomore, Miss Trent. In talking with her, she mentioned that you had gone to the station to meet us.”

“Oh, yes. Miss Trent. She was on the veranda when we left here.” She looked toward Miss Cairns for corroboration. The latter nodded slightly and made an almost imperceptible gesture with her left hand.

“We are so sorry we missed you, at any rate.” Miss Vail took it upon herself to do a share of the apologizing. At the same time she rose from her seat on the couch bed. “How do you like the table here?” she queried condescendingly. “We find it better than last year. Remson has a new cook now. She can see the other cook silly when it comes to eats.”

A peculiar silence ensued as Miss Vale’s high-pitched tones ceased. It had been forced upon the Lookouts to defer an opinion of said “table” until the next day. They were certainly at present in no position to make a statement.

“As we have been here so short a time we can’t pass an opinion on a thing at Wayland Hall yet.” Marjorie answered for her friends, not daring to look toward any of them.

“Naturally not,” agreed Miss Cairns suavely. “Mind if we leave you now? We really must go, Nat. We had our dinner at Baretti’s tonight. Some of the Sans are waiting at the Colonial for us. We are going on there for dessert.”

“Yes, the gang will wonder what has become of us.” Natalie now got to her feet. She favored the Lookouts with a smile, which was intended to be gracious, but utterly lacked sincerity. Her pals already at the door, she joined them. This time there was no handshaking. While it would not have been necessary, a truly sincere bevy of girls would have undoubtedly shaken hands and enjoyed that act of fellowship.

“Thank you for remembering us at the station today, even though we did miss connections. We appreciate your coming to call on us this evening, too. Freshmen are very lowly persons at college until they have won their spurs on the field of college honors. We shall try not to be an annoyance to our sophomore sisters.”

Marjorie tried conscientiously to put aside all trace of irritation as she made this little speech. She realized that her chums had left it to her to handle the situation. While they had all exchanged a certain amount of conversation with the visitors, they had run out from sheer lack of sympathy. The callers had aroused belligerence in Jerry, Ronny and Muriel. Lucy Warner had fairly congealed with dislike. Marjorie had alone stayed on an even keel.

Perhaps the unfailing courtesy of the tired, hungry lieutenant made some slight impression on the departing sophomores. Halfway out the door as Marjorie answered, Natalie Weyman had the grace to say: “You really haven’t anything to thank us for, Miss Dean. Wait until we do something for you, worth while. We will drop in on you again when we have more time. Good night.”

She had been on the point of offering her hand at the last, stirred out of her usual self-centeredness by Marjorie’s gentle manners. Then she had looked again at the freshman’s exquisite face, and fellowship had died before birth. Natalie Weyman was considered a beauty at home, in New York City, and at Hamilton College. She had at last seen a girl whom she considered fully as pretty as herself. As a result she was now very, very jealous.

CHAPTER XIII. – ON THE TRAIL OF DINNER

“Can you beat it? Uh-h-h-h!” Jerry dropped with angry force into the arm chair which Natalie Weyman had so recently vacated. “What was the matter with those girls, anyway? How could they help but know that we hadn’t had our dinner? It was after six o’clock when we reached here. It took time to get hold of Busy Buzzy and be assigned to our rooms, and more time to make ourselves presentable. Why couldn’t they have figured out that much? Next step in our process of deduction; they came to the door about twenty minutes past seven. Now how could we have had time to go down stairs, eat our dinner and be back in our room again?”

“The answer is, they didn’t do any deducing,” declared Muriel. “I suppose they simply chose their own time to call.”

“A very inconvenient time, I must say,” grumbled Jerry. “Here’s another point that needs clearing up. If that Miss Weyman drove her car down to the station, expecting to bring the five of us back in it, why was it cram-jam full of girls?”

“They may have been friends of hers who merely wanted to ride down to the station, Jerry,” surmised Ronny. “Why trouble your brain about our callers now? Let us think about where we are going to have our dinner. The dining room is closed, of course. We shall have to call on the hospitable Baretti for sustenance. He’s hospitable if his restaurant is still open. Otherwise, I don’t think much of him.”

“First thing to do is to find out where he holds forth. I hope the place is not far from here. I’m so hungry and so tired.” Marjorie spoke with a tired kind of patience that ended in a yawn. “We had better start out at once. We’ll probably find some one downstairs who can direct us.”

The others no less hungry, the Five Travelers lost no more time in getting downstairs, preferring to leave the subject of their recent callers until a time more convenient for discussion. At the foot of the stairs they encountered two girls about to ascend.

“Good evening. Will you please direct us to Baretti’s?” It was Ronny who asked the question in a clear, even tone that, while courteous, was so strictly impersonal as to be almost cool. Having just encountered a trio of girls whom she had instantly set down as snobs, Ronny had donned her armor.

“Good evening.” Both girls returned the salutation. The taller of the two, a sandy-haired young woman with sleepy gray eyes, a square chin and freckles now became spokesman. “You will find Baretti’s about a square from the west wall of the campus. Turn to your right as you pass out the main gate.”

“There is the Colonial, too, about two squares beyond Baretti’s,” informed the other, a pretty girl in a ruffled gown of apricot organdie that accentuated the black silkiness of her hair which lay off her low forehead in little soft rings.

“Thank you.” Ronny modified the crispness of her tone a trifle. “We shall not care to go further than Baretti’s tonight. May I ask what time the restaurant closes?”

“Ten o’clock.” The gray-eyed girl seemed on the point of volunteering a remark. She half-opened her lips, then closed them almost tightly as if repenting of the impulse.

With a second “Thank you” a shade cooler than the first, Ronny concluded the brief interview. The four Lookouts had walked toward the Hall door, which stood open, and there paused to wait for her. Ordinarily, Ronny would have addressed the strangers with a certain graciousness of manner which was one of her charms. She had relaxed a little from her first reserve on the strength of their apparent willingness to direct her to Baretti’s. She had not missed, however, the gray-eyed girl’s deliberate checking of her own purposed remark. While she forebore to place an adverse construction upon it, nevertheless it had annoyed her. Trace of a frown lingered between her dark brows as she joined the others.

“I noticed you didn’t get very chummy with that pair,” greeted Jerry. “Just so you located our commissary department, Baretti. He’s our star of hope at present.” Jerry led the way across the veranda and down the steps.

“I know the way to Baretti’s, never fear,” Ronny assured. “It is one square from the west wall of the campus. Just how much of a walk that means, we shall see. It may be anywhere from a quarter to three-quarters of a mile to the west wall. We turn to our right as we go through the gateway.”

“We will have to walk it, even if it is a mile,” decreed Muriel. “I’d walk two miles for something to eat. I am about as hungry as I can ever remember of being. Our introduction to Hamilton! Good night!”

“I can’t get it through my head that we are actually students at Hamilton College,” declared Muriel. “I feel more as though I had just arrived at a summer hotel where people came and went without the slightest interest in one another.”

“It is missing dinner at the Hall that makes it seem so. If we had had a fair chance at the dining room we would have felt more – ” Jerry paused to choose a word descriptive of their united feelings. “Well, we would have felt cinched to Hamilton. That nice Miss Trent helped us, of course, but she faded away and disappeared the minute she turned us over to Miss Remson. I don’t believe we can be, what you might call, fascinating. No one seems to care to linger near us. Wouldn’t that be a splendid title for one of those silly old popular songs? ‘No one cares to linger near,’ as sung by the great always off the key vocalist, Jerry Macy. Wh-ir-r! Bu-z-z-z! What has happened to you swe-e-etart, that you do not linger near-r-r? I am lonele-e-e – ”

Jerry’s imitation of a phonograph rendering a popular song of her own impromptu composition ended suddenly. Muriel placed a defensive hand over the singer’s mouth. “Have mercy on us, Jeremiah,” she begged. “You are at Hamilton now. Try to act like some one. That’s the advice I heard one of the mill women give her unruly son at the nursery one day last winter.”

“I trust no one but ourselves heard you,” was Veronica’s uncomplimentary addition, delivered in a tone of shocked disapproval.

“I don’t blame anyone for not caring to linger near such awful sounds.” Lucy’s criticism, spoken in her precise manner, produced a burst of low-keyed laughter. It appeared to amuse Jerry most of all.

By this time they had passed through the gateway, flanked by high, ornamental stone posts, and were following a fairly wide, beaten footpath that shone white in the light shed by the rising moon. On their right hand side, the college wall of matched gray stone rose considerably above their heads.

“This wall must be at least ten feet high and about three or four thick.” Jerry calculatingly appraised the wall. “It extends the whole around the campus, so far as I could tell by daylight. I was noticing it as we came into the grounds today.”

“We are not so far from the end of it now.” Marjorie made the announcement with a faint breath of relief. “You can see the corner post from here. I think it about a quarter of a mile from the gate.”

“And only a square from it lies our dinner, thank goodness! Let’s run.” Muriel made a pretended dash forward and was promptly checked by Jerry. “You wouldn’t let me sing. Now you need a clamp. I’ll give you a piece of advice I heard last winter at that same old nursery: ‘Walk pretty. Don’t be runnin’ yourse’f all over the place.’”

“There is Baretti’s across the road.” Marjorie pointed down the road a little, to where, on the opposite side, two posts, topped by cluster electric lights, rose on each side of a fairly wide stone walk that was the approach to the restaurant. It stood fully a hundred feet from the highway, an odd, one-story structure of brown stone, looking like an inn of a bygone period. In sharp contrast to the white radiance of the guide lights at the end of the walk, the light over the doorway was faint and yellow, proceeding from a single lamp, set in a curious wrought-iron frame, which depended from a bell-like hood over the door.

Through the narrow-paned windows streamed the welcome glow of light within. It warmed the hearts of the Five Travelers even as in departed days it had gladdened the eyes of weary wayfarers in search of purchased hospitality.

“What an odd old place!” Lucy Warner cried out in admiration. “It is like the ancient hostelries one reads of. I wonder if it has always been an inn. It must be considerably over a hundred years old.”

“I suppose it is. A good deal of the country around here is historic, I believe. You remember the bulletin said Brooke Hamilton was a young man at the time of La Fayette’s visit to America. That was in 1824. He and La Fayette met and the Marquis was so delighted with him that he invited him to join his suite of friends during his tour of the country. I wish it had said more about both of them, but it didn’t,” finished Marjorie regretfully.

“Perhaps the old Marquis de la Fayette and young Brooke Hamilton walked down the very road we walked tonight and supped at the same old inn,” Veronica said, as they approached the two wide, low steps that formed the entrance to the restaurant.

“Quite likely they did,” agreed Jerry. The foremost of the party, she opened the heavy, paneled door of solid oak.

A faint, united breath of approbation rose from the visitors as they stepped into a room of noble proportions. It was almost square and as beautiful an apartment as the girls had ever seen. Beam ceiling, wainscoting and floor were all of precisely the same shade and quality of dark oak. So perfectly did every foot of wood in the room match that it might have all come from one giant tree, hewn out and polished by gnomes. There was something about its perfection that suggested a castle hall of fairy lore. On each side of the room were three high-backed, massive oak benches. The tops of these were decorated by a carved oak leaf pattern, the simplicity of which was the design of genius itself. The heavy, claw-legged oak tables, oval in shape and ten in number, all bore the same pattern, carved in the table top at about two inches from the edge. There was no attempt at placing the tables in rows. They stood at intervals far enough apart to permit easy passage in and out among them. Yet each table seemed fitted into its own proper space. Moved two inches out of it, the whole scheme of artistic regularity would have been spoiled.

“It’s evident that Signor Baretti never furnished this room,” commented Ronny in a voice just above a whisper. “I never saw anything like it, before! never! Lead me to a seat at one of those beautiful tables.”