Kit rose and crossed the room with caution until she stood behind Amy and intoned sepulchrally from Macbeth: "What ho! Ye secret, black and midnight hags, what is't ye do?" CHAPTER XVII HOPE'S PRIMROSE PATH "Well, we waited fifteen minutes for you," protested Amy, laughingly, "and Norma had to come down-town to try and find some high boots like Julia Marlowe wore for Rosalind. She's had that old picture of her pinned up on the wall for two weeks." "Oh, and listen, Kit," Norma broke in; "you know that suede brown leather table cover of mine; I just took and slashed it around the edges and bent it over an old tam-o'-shanter crown and it looks exactly like the hat she wore. You know I've been considering rather seriously. Don't you really think that I'm peculiarly fitted for this sort of a career? Of course I'd only play Shakespearian parts, although I'd love to be Joan of Arc like Maude Adams was at Harvard, or play the old Greek tragedies at that Stadium place, somewhere in California. I've been studying Electra a little bit." "Have you?" questioned Kit, kindly. "You dear child, you. So young and yet so aspiring. Finish your chocolate ice cream soda, and we'll run along. Rex just came with his car and we can all pile into it." The rehearsal passed off splendidly, barring sundry interpolations by Kit into Orlando's flights of fancy. "I think he would have had to have been much more interesting to have held the love of such a girl as Rosalind," she protested. "Heroes are awful people anyway, I think. The only ones I really like are explorers. Uncle Cassius said the other day that the most unique experience was to be the first white man to step foot on new territory. I may take up forestry as a profession, but I'd much rather be a woman explorer." "Deserts, islands or mountain peaks?" queried Amy, as she dipped into her store of supplies under the couch for some hasty refreshments. "Caves, I think," said Kit, darkly; "caves or islands. Don't give me anything to eat, 'cause I have to look up something in the library before I go home, and I'm late for lunch now." "Just pimento cheese on crackers, and I've got some chocolate marshmallows here somewhere." Amy's voice was muffled under the couch cover. But the clock on the mantel pointed at twelve-fifteen, and Kit knew the Dean's punctilious regard for keeping meal hours. The library was unoccupied, apparently. Kit went over to the lower book shelves which contained the reference books on archaeology, dragging a low stool after her. "A-men-o-taph," she said, under her breath. "Likewise Semele."