Saturday evening, Jan. 18.
Since Monday I have left the house but once. The Judge has given me a microscope so that I may study at home instead of going to Barnard; and to please him I make a pretence of cutting sections from the plants in Aunt's conservatory; but oh, it's so dull, so dull! Or would be but for my happy thoughts. It isn't interest in apical cell or primary meristem that makes me fret to return to Prof. Darmstetter!
It's all on account of reporters that I am shut up like a state secret or a crown jewel. From daylight until dark, men with pencils and notebooks, cardboard-bearing artists and people with hand cameras have watched the house; and it's so tiresome.
The siege had already begun when Mrs. Baker came to my room the morning after the Opera, but I knew nothing about it. I couldn't understand why she scolded with such vehemence upon finding me writing in this little book instead of lying in bed; why she exclaimed so nervously over my escape and the horrors of jumping from windows, or sliding down ropes, or of being hurried along in fire panics until I was crushed to death.
"Why, you talk as if there had been a fire," I cried, kissing her.
Millions of fires have flamed and roared and sunk and died again; but never before has there been a Me!
The dear fussy little woman said that John had been telephoning inquiries. I could see that she wished to keep me in my room, and finally, at some laboured excuse for withholding the morning papers, I understood that she and John were hiding something; she is so transparent!
"You must be calm, Nelly, dear; you mustn't excite yourself," she chirped anxiously.
"Unless I see the papers, I shall have a fever, a high fever," I threatened; "I must--oh, I must see every word about last evening!"
At last the Record and the Messenger came upstairs already opened to the critiques of the new opera. Mrs. Baker wished to read aloud, but I almost snatched the papers from her; my eyes couldn't go fast enough down the columns. But in neither sheet did I find more than a reference to a "senseless alarm" that marred the rendition of "Christofero."
My cheeks flamed with annoyance. It was the reporters who were senseless; they had seen men adoring the wonder of this century, and had not flashed news of it--of me--to all the world!
Aunt couldn't understand. She thought to comfort me by saying that my share in the disturbance would never be suspected; she unblushingly averred that no one had seen me; she begged me to rest, to forget my fright, not to be distressed by the newspapers.