Page:Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark.djvu/481

 was behaving foolishly. She took off her hat and coat and ordered another dinner. When it arrived, it was no better than the first. There was even a burnt match under the milk toast. She had a sore throat, which made swallowing painful and boded ill for the morrow. Although she had been speaking in whispers all day to save her throat, she now perversely summoned the housekeeper and demanded an account of some laundry that had been lost. The housekeeper was indifferent and impertinent, and Thea got angry and scolded violently. She knew it was very bad for her to get into a rage just before bedtime, and after the housekeeper left she realized that for ten dollars' worth of underclothing she had been unfitting herself for a performance which might eventually mean many thousands. The best thing now was to stop reproaching herself for her lack of sense, but she was too tired to control her thoughts.

While she was undressing—Thérèse was brushing out her Sieglinde wig in the trunk-room she went on chiding herself bitterly. "And how am I ever going to get to sleep in this state?" she kept asking herself. "If I don't sleep, I 'll be perfectly worthless to-morrow. I 'll go down there to-morrow and make a fool of myself. If I 'd let that laundry alone with whatever nigger has stolen it— Why did I undertake to reform the management of this hotel to-night? After to-morrow I could pack up and leave the place. There 's the Phillamon—I liked the rooms there better, anyhow—and the Umberto—" She began going over the advantages and disadvantages of different apartment hotels. Suddenly she checked herself. "What am I doing this for? I can't move into another hotel to-night, I 'll keep this up till morning. I shan't sleep a wink."

Should she take a hot bath, or should n't she? Sometimes it relaxed her, and sometimes it roused her and fairly put her beside herself. Between the conviction that she must sleep and the fear that she could n't, she hung