CHAPTER V.A COLLEGE GIRL AGAIN
In the very next minute there was one decidedly surprised Traveler. As Marjorie stepped after Miss Susanna into her room a rising tide of jubilant sound assailed her ears.
“Hamilton, Hamilton, staunch and true:Great Brooke Hamilton founded you.Great Brooke Hamilton—that’s his name!Great Brooke Hamilton—sound his fame.”
“Hamilton, Hamilton, staunch and true:Great Brooke Hamilton founded you.Great Brooke Hamilton—that’s his name!Great Brooke Hamilton—sound his fame.”
“Hamilton, Hamilton, staunch and true:Great Brooke Hamilton founded you.Great Brooke Hamilton—that’s his name!Great Brooke Hamilton—sound his fame.”
“Hamilton, Hamilton, staunch and true:
Great Brooke Hamilton founded you.
Great Brooke Hamilton—that’s his name!
Great Brooke Hamilton—sound his fame.”
Twice the merry company shouted out this welcome. Miss Susanna laughingly acknowledged the honor done her with a flourish of small hands and many bobbing bows. Far from showing surprise at the festal scene into which she and Marjorie had walked she irradiated only chuckling amusement.
“The Empress of Wayland Hall has already arrived and been conducted to her place on the throne.”Ronny tripped to the middle of the room with this announcement as soon as the hub-bub attending the new Hamilton yell had subsided. She was attired in a green velvet page’s costume which she had confiscated from a trunk in the attic. Her fair features were animated with mischievous light as she went through a kind of ceremonious dance before Miss Susanna. She gracefully beckoned the old lady to the throne and grandiosely pointed out the middle vacant place on it.
“What is all this about?” demanded Marjorie. She grandly waved Ronny off when the latter returned from escorting Miss Hamilton to the throne to perform the same kind office for her.
“Ask no questions, pretty maid, but gently follow your leader,” was Ronny’s lofty advice. “You are about to be ranked with royalty.”
“I shall remain a commoner all the rest of my life unless you explain some of this thusness,” defied Marjorie threateningly with an anything but threatening expression. “How didyouknow Miss Susanna was coming here today, when I didn’t? How does Miss Remson happen to be here to meet her? You never made up that dandy Hamilton yell on the spur of the moment. Look at this room! I know you’ve been fixing at it ever since I wentout to meet Miss Susanna. You’re all conspirators, the dearest, bestest, dandiest old plotters under the sun.
“You’reas guilty as they are.” She leveled an accusing finger at Miss Hamilton. “You didn’t know a thing about it last night. I guess a flock of little birds flew over to the Arms this morning. That would account for why you changed your mind.”
“What a terrible tirade,” commented Ronny in a shocked tone.
“Why don’t you introduce us to the royal party you’ve just called down?” inquired Jerry, her cheerful smile in evidence.
“Judging from the preparations you’ve made for her, I’d say you know her better than I,” was Marjorie’s laughing rejoinder. “Now I’m going to do something I’ve longed to do for two years. I’m going to introduce the Empress of Wayland Hall to the Lady of Hamilton Arms.”
Marjorie walked up to the make-shift throne and salaamed profoundly before it to its two occupants. Then she lifted one of Miss Remson’s hands and placed it in one of Miss Susanna’s. The crowd of laughing girls had drawn close to the trio as she did thus. “We love you both so much,” she saidin her clear enunciation. “I know you are friends already.”
Approving applause went up from the more humble subjects. Their compact movement toward the throne had not been without an object. Marjorie felt herself suddenly seized and shoved into the throne’s vacant left-hand place before she could make the least resistance.
“Now will you be good?” Muriel Harding threatened the flushed giggling addition to royalty. “Don’t fail to notice that I am hanging over you with my most menacing air.”
“You look about as menacing as a peaceful sheep,” Lillian Wenderblatt promptly criticized.
“If you had said a lamb I shouldn’t have minded. I’m very certain Ido notlook like a sheep, peaceful or ferocious,” Muriel asserted with vast dignity.
“A ferocious sheep,” pleasantly repeated Vera. “How very entertaining; the idea, I mean.”
“Oh, start on someone else. If you don’t treat me with more respect I shall tell the royal party what the throne’s made of,” warned Muriel.
“Icould do that, but I won’t.” Marjorie beamed knowingly at Jerry. “How you must have hustled, Jeremiah Macy, to do all this.” A comprehensive sweep of an arm not only included the throne, butalso the study table, flower-trimmed and set out with a tea service. There were two gorgeous bunches of roses, one on each chiffonier. Scattered about the room was the pick of decorative treasures from each Travelers’ room.
“Oh, I hustled a little bit. The girls did a lot, too. After Leila and I called up Miss—” She clapped her hand to her mouth in merry dismay.
“So itwasn’ta flock of birds that told you.” Marjorie bent a gaily disapproving glance upon Miss Hamilton. “And I was the only one surprised of all this crowd. I’m still more surprised at being royalty. Would you mind mentioning my royal title.”
“The Royal Countess of Bean,” Jerry instantly supplied. “I hope you like and appreciate it.”
“I’ll try to,” Marjorie promised with a plaintive meekness which produced a gale of ready laughter in which she joined.
Miss Remson and Miss Susanna had clasped hands and taken but one straight survey, each of the other, before knowing that they were destined to pass quickly from acquaintanceship to the estate of friendship. “My girls,” as the old lady loved to call the special little coterie to which Marjorie belonged,would be the fragrant, youthful bond between these two elder sisters of Hamilton.
While royalty took its ease on a plumped-up throne the hard working subjects of the imperial trio prepared the feast. Leila made the tea, boastfully asserting that no such tea had ever been made before in the history of the world.
“My,suchan equivocal statement! It might mean either the best or the worst tea that was ever made,” Kathie pointed out, grave as a judge.
“Rather sweeping,Ishould say,” was Vera’s ironical opinion.
“I am not sorry I praised my own tea. Now I know that nobody else would have done it,” Leila remarked loudly to the teapot as she set it on the table. “Even Midget has a grudge against my sayings.”
“Oh, never mind about Midget. I approve of you and your sayings, Leila Greatheart,” consoled Jerry. “Do say something to me now.”
“That I will.” Leila dropped into a brogue. “I’ll be askin’ a favor of you, Jeremiah.” There was a mirthful gleam in Leila’s blue eyes which Jerry happened to miss. “Go to Marjorie’s closet and bring out of it the box of maccaroons I placed there a while ago.”
Jerry obediently started for the closet. Her progress was followed by several pairs of laughing eyes. Leila watched her with an amused show of white teeth.
“Aa-h-h-h!” Jerry emitted a sharp yell and made a headlong dive into the closet. She kicked the box of maccaroons, which reposed on the closet floor at her feet, nearly overturning it. She had forgotten everything except the tall slender girl stowed away in the closet whose unexpected appearance in such a place had given her a startling surprise. Both plump arms wound around Helen Trent. Jerry was now giving a bear-like demonstration of affection.
“Helen; good old Helen Trent!” she was crying out in delight. “How long have you been lurking in that closet? Come out of it, this instant. Leila Harper put you there, of course. That’s why she sent me for the maccaroons.”
Fondly escorted by Jerry, Helen emerged from Marjorie’s dress closet to become the center of attraction in the room for the time being.
“So glad to get out of that stuffy old closet,” she sighed, with her ever attractive display of dimples. “Leila told me to stay in there until she sent Jerry to let me out. I could hear all of you talking. HowI wanted to butt in. For Jeremiah’s sake I was noble and silent.”
“Cut out being noble and silent. Talk,” urged Jerry. She was bubbling over with good cheer at sight of pretty, easy-going Helen whose cheery disposition was always toward the funny side of life.
“I will. First let me hug Marjorie and Miss Susanna. I haven’t hugged them yet. Then do give me some tea and a chair over which to drape my weary frame.” Helen grew ridiculously pleading.
“You talk like a one-piece dress,” Jerry snickered.
“Well?” Helen lazily opened her limpid blue eyes. “You know you didn’t specify as to the kind of talk, Jeremiah. You simply said: ‘Talk.’ It’s werry fatiguing, Jeremiah, to stand up indefinitely in a dress closet. I don’t aspire to a seat on the throne. I am too modest. I think your arm chair might be nice.” Helen sent an ingratiating smile to Muriel who was complacently occupying the coveted arm chair.
“I’ll tip Muriel out immediately.” Jerry swaggered over to the grinning occupant. “Vacate gracefully, or be tipped out bodily?” she asked with dangerous suavity.
“You can’t tip me out of what I’m not in.” Murielmade an agile bound from the chair and dodged Jerry’s reaching hands.
“Let Muriel have the chair. Take my place on the throne, Helen. Miss Susanna wants to monopolize you.” Marjorie came forward and escorted Helen to the dais. Muriel instantly retrieved the chair and jeered at Jerry.
“It’s a wonder you didn’t see me when I came in this morning,” Helen laughingly told Marjorie. “I dodged into Miss Remson’s office just as you came downstairs to go to the laboratory.”
“I was too obliging to see what I wasn’t supposed to,” Marjorie made jesting return. With her usual love of action she began helping Leila serve the tea. The spread was a lap collation with the guests informally occupying, for the most part, cushions on the floor. Paper napkins, paper plates and tea cups balanced on knees were leading features. But Leila’s tea was above reproach. The tiny toothsome sandwiches made by Ronny and Vera disappeared like magic. Ellen’s famous caramel cake was delicious as ever and the salted nuts, olives and cheese straws appetizing relishes.
None of the effervescently gay company in 15 was enjoying the party more hugely than Miss Susanna. She ate the delectable fare offered her with hungryheartiness, drank two cups of tea; laughed and chatted with the happy abandon of girlhood.
Because she loved these girls who had loved her and revered the memory of her kinsman, the once-prejudiced, only living representative of a grand old colonial family, suddenly experienced a new and overwhelming sympathy toward all girlhood. Little by little the rusting bars of prejudice had worn away against the friendly assaults of “her girls.” For that she owed girlhood a debt which she purposed to pay.
More than once as her eyes strayed to Marjorie, to rest with content on the young girl’s glowing, sunshiny face she was reminded of the lines of a favorite old song. She found exquisite happiness in fitting the worshipping words to Marjorie.
“Like the sun thy presence glowingClothes the meanest thing in light:And when thou like him art going,Loveliest objects fade in night.All things look so bright above thee—That they nothing seem without thee:By that pure and lucid mindEarthly visions are refined.”
“Like the sun thy presence glowingClothes the meanest thing in light:And when thou like him art going,Loveliest objects fade in night.All things look so bright above thee—That they nothing seem without thee:By that pure and lucid mindEarthly visions are refined.”
“Like the sun thy presence glowingClothes the meanest thing in light:And when thou like him art going,Loveliest objects fade in night.All things look so bright above thee—That they nothing seem without thee:By that pure and lucid mindEarthly visions are refined.”
“Like the sun thy presence glowing
Clothes the meanest thing in light:
And when thou like him art going,
Loveliest objects fade in night.
All things look so bright above thee—
That they nothing seem without thee:
By that pure and lucid mind
Earthly visions are refined.”
CHAPTER VI.A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
“Yes, Bean, there is nothing like efficiency. And I amsoefficient. I didn’t hear you say a thing.” Jerry cupped a hand to an ear and eyed Marjorie hopefully. Marjorie was frowningly occupied with a page of maddeningly abstruse French. “I certainly have worked hard at this schedule.” Jerry continued her self-laudatory remarks. “But the results arecelostrous, Bean;simply celostrous! Ha! I thought my new word would prove irresistible!” she exclaimed in triumph as Marjorie looked up in mild surprise at Jerry’s latest coining.
“Something sounded new and queer,” Marjorie averred with the gurgling little laugh Jerry liked to hear.
“Now that I have your attention, never mind about my new descriptive adjective. I’ve been frisking gaily about the room, dropping things on the floor, growling as I picked them up. And why?On purpose to be noticed by you. Seeing you’re now seeing me, may I venture to ask if you know the reason for my nice new adjective?” Jerry pursued blandly.
“I never heard you frisk a single frisk, Jeremiah, or drop a single drop, or growl a single growl. This page of French is awful! It’s an odd old religious argument between two Norman priests. I’d say it couldn’t be lucidly translated into English, but it can, or we wouldn’t be stuck with it for a study.”
“Go and ask her frozenness, the Ice Queen, to give you a lift,” innocently proposed Jerry. “Muriel says she is a wonder in French. Due to having had a French governess ever since she could hot-foot it around the nursery.”
“I’d like to ask her about this very thing,” sighed Marjorie. “If I wanted to know about it for someone else I suppose I might. I don’t feel inclined to go to her on my own account.”
“I get you, Bean. Don’t take my advice. I wouldn’t take it myself. You could ask Muriel to ask her about it. That ain’t no way to do, either.” She shook a reproving head at herself in her dressing table mirror in front of which she had paused to fluff and pat her hair.
“This translation would really be a good excusefor going to see Miss Monroe,” Marjorie reflected aloud. “I wonder what she will do during the holidays? She told Muriel she had no friends in the United States besides the Hamilton girls she knows.”
“I suppose she includes Leslie Hob-goblin Cairns among the Hamilton aggregation.” Jerry swung disdainfully around from the mirror.
“Um-m; probably.” Marjorie sat chin in hand, staring ruminatively at Jerry. “Leslie Cairns may ask Miss Monroe to spend Christmas with her,” she advanced after a moment’s silence. “I don’t mean in the town of Hamilton, at the Hamilton Hotel. I mean away from there; New York or Philadelphia, or even Chicago.”
“She may have asked her long before this.” Jerry spoke rather impatiently. “Suppose she hasn’t, Marvelous Manager?”
“Then some of us should take her home with us,” Marjorie said with conviction.
“Uh-h-h-h. I knew it,” Jerry groaned. “But it can’t be you, and it won’t be me. At least I hope it won’t. You ought not attempt to entertain Miss Susanna at Castle Dean and run a welfare bureau there at the same time.”
“You’re positively outrageous, Jeremiah, but there’s fatal truth in what you say,” Marjorie smiledat Jerry’s humorous injunction. “It would complicate things to have Miss Monroe visit me while Miss Susanna is at the castle. I am so anxious, for Miss Susanna’s sake, to have the perfect spirit of Christmas in the house. Leila, Vera and Robin will help it along, but Miss Monroe wouldn’t. There’d be a strain on everything that would spoil all the joy and dearness of Yuletide. It would worry General and Captain. I—I couldn’t do it and be fair to them.” The laughter had died out of her face.
“How do you know she’d come if you asked her?” quizzed Jerry. “It’s only recently that she’s discovered you are on the college map. She hasn’t discovered me yet. Can you blame me for not being crazy to welcome her to the Macy’s humble hut? Suppose I did, and she fell in love with Hal? I’d have put myself in line for the lasting reproach of an injured brother.”
“You’re a nonsensical goose.” Marjorie felt her face grow rosy at mention of Hal Macy. She was provoked with herself for blushing.
“I suspect it, but you’ve said it. Nothing can be done about it either.” Jerry drew a chair up to the study table. She sat down opposite Marjorie, leaned her elbows on it in imitation of her chum and stared at Marjorie with a refulgent smile. Shedrew from a pocket of her serge dress a little blue book. “Every blessed thing we have to do, person we have to see, or place we have to go on the campus within the next ten days is down in this book,” she said with satisfaction.
“Oh, let me see it!” Marjorie reached out eagerly for the book. She examined it with growing enthusiasm. “It’s a treasure, Jerry. How did you happen to think of doing it?”
“Past sad experience, my child. I’m growing old.” Jerry gave a muffled sob. “I can’t rush around and do ten days pre-Christmas celebrating, shopping, calling, and get away with it, all within three hours before train time. This lovely schedule includes everything and everybody who it is up to us to include on the campus.”
“It’s—” Marjorie paused: “celostrous,” she said with a laugh. “There, Jeremiah, I remembered your new adjective. If we stick to that program we’ll be wonders. If we half stick to it we’ll avoid a rush at the last minute. I’m so glad the dormitory girls are beautifully taken care of. That was another of your inspirations.”
On the evening following Miss Susanna’s visit to Wayland Hall the original Travelers had held a meeting in Leila’s and Vera’s room. Its purposewas to discuss what should be done in the way of Christmas entertainment on the campus for the students who expected to remain in college during holidays. Persistent scouting for two weeks previous among the students, by both chapters of the Travelers, had established the fact that not more than a dozen girls on the campus would spend the holidays at Hamilton College. Again the dormitory girls became the main problem for consideration.
Jerry had solved the problem by proposing that each Traveler should make herself responsible for the holiday amusement of two dormitory girls. “Find out what they’d like to do over the holidays and then help them do it,” she had advised. “Some will want to spend Christmas in the city. Others would probably love to be invited to spend the holidays in the kind of homes we have, where there is lots of Christmas cheer. I’ll take four dorms home with me. Let me hear from the rest of you.”
Hailing Jerry’s suggestion with the good will attending the season, Page and Dean, the dormitory girls’ main stand-bys, called a meeting of the “dorms” in Greek Hall and electrified the off-campus girls with their unexpected proposal. Before the favored company of students left Greek Hall each had confided either to Robin or Marjorie her choicein regard to how she would prefer to spend the Christmas vacation. Fifteen of the dormitory girls had already made plans to spend the holidays at their own homes or those of friends. Forty of them wistfully declared for the joy of a family Christmas, but demurred in the same breath as being “afraid of causing too much work and trouble for others.” The comparatively small remainder consisted of the more independent and adventurous contingent of “dorms” who welcomed the experience of seeing New York, Philadelphia or Washington, D. C., the three cities among which they were given choice.
Leila, Vera, Kathie, Helen, Robin, Phil Moore and Barbara Severn were among the Travelers Sanford bound. Leila, Vera and Robin were to be Marjorie’s guests as well as Miss Susanna. Kathie was to be Lucy’s company. Helen fell to Jerry, who would also entertain the four dorms. Ronny had arranged to go to Miss Archer. Phil and Barbara would share her hospitality. So would two of the dormitory girls. Lucy had also invited Anna Towne and Verna Burkett. She was highly edified at the prospect of entertaining three girls instead of one.
Jerry’s whole-souled proposal had now been successfully carried out so far as the preliminaries ofchoice went. It now remained to the Travelers, original and of the new branch of the sorority, to look out for the off-campus girls who longed for a home-like Christmas. As seven of the Travelers themselves were to be guests of the Sanford girls they could not be counted upon, therefore, to furnish the holiday pleasures of home to the dormitory girls. They did their part by taking upon themselves the financing of the modest city expeditions planned by the off-campus girls. Nor would they allow their chums to contribute a penny toward it.
“You heard what I said, Jerry Macy.” Marjorie suddenly bounced up from her chair and made one of her funny, little-girl rushes at Jerry. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.” She pounced upon Jerry, threatening: “I’m going to muss up your hair, since you took so much trouble to fix it. The only way you can save your nice fluffy coiffure is to say: ‘Yes, Marjorie, it was another of my inspirations.’ You may notice I don’t refer to my precious self as ‘Bean,’ either.”
“Sorry, but I never could talk like you, Bean.” To complete her defiance up went Jerry’s hands in a backward reach. She caught Marjorie wrists. The two girls were engaged in a friendly grapple when the door opened and Muriel Harding came in, herarms piled high with packages, her smart little hat set far back on her head, two or three loosened curling locks of hair hanging over her face.
“What have we here?” Jerry demanded pleasantly. “Just what one might expect would drift in without knocking.”
“You’re doing the knocking now; why worry,” chuckled Muriel. She walked over to Jerry’s couch bed; dumped her packages upon it with a great sigh of relief. “I made port at the front door with my cargo beautifully, but I fell up two steps of the stairs. You can see what a wreck it made of me.” She sat down on the couch beside her bundles, whipped off her hat and began tucking up her unruly locks of bright hair. “Every last present that I intend to buy for campus dwellers is in this heap,” she declared with stress.
“Is there anything for me there?” Jerry showed sudden flattering interest in Muriel. “If so, let me see it.”
“No, there’s nothing for you,” mimicked Muriel. “I’m going to buy your Christmas present at home, in the Sanford ten-cent store.”
“Perhaps we’ll meet there.” Jerry arched significant brows. “I had thought of some nice little ten-cent token for—” She made an effective pause.
“I didn’t come here to talk to you.” Muriel tossed her head. “I came to see Marjorie. I’ve had bad luck about my two Christmas dorms, Marvelous Manager. The same nice thing has happened to them both. Their families have sent them the money to go home for the holidays. Neither of them had expected any such good fortune. The rest of the dorms have their plans all made. Not a single, double, triple or quadruple dorm will grace the would-be hospitable hearth of Harding. I’ll bet you couldn’t make up a sentiment as effective as that, Jeremiah.”
“A double dorm would be twins. A triple dorm would be a freak. A quadruple dorm would constitute material for a side-show,” was Jerry’s reflectively satirical observation. “Oh, I forgot. Kindly confine your conversation to Bean.”
“Go away, Jeremiah,” Muriel firmly requested. “Go and see Ronny. A big box for her from California is downstairs in the hall. Tell her I saw it first and politely sent you to hand her the news. It will show Ronny how helpful my disposition is. You can square yourself with me at the same time.” Muriel opened her eyes, showed her teeth and bobbed her head at Jerry in what she termed her “delighted” expression.
“Tell her yourself; I’m no news herald.” Jerry made no move to perform the squaring act Muriel had suggested. In the next two minutes she changed her mind and hustled to tell Ronny of the box.
“I happen to remember that you are just the person I want to talk to, Muriel,” Marjorie said. “Jerry and I have been wondering what Miss Monroe is going to do over the holidays. Last time I asked you about her you hadn’t been able to find out her plans. What do you know about them now?”
“Not a blessed thing except this. She said yesterday she might spend Christmas in New York. I had asked her outright what she was going to do over the holidays. It was inquisitive; maybe.” Muriel shrugged her shoulders. “I knew you were anxious to know.”
“If she is going to New York, it means Leslie Cairns has invited her. That’s too bad; after the encouraging signs she’s shown lately of thawing toward us.” Marjorie’s tone was rather gloomy. “It will quash everything we’ve tried to do to draw her away from Leslie Cairns. I’d invite her to go home with me for the holidays, but I have Miss Susanna to consider first of all. If I hadn’t, Miss Monroe wouldn’t accept a Christmas invitation from me,” Marjorie ended with a trace of self-mockery.
“To hear you talk one might think you were a tabooed character.” Muriel’s gurgle of laughter brought a smile to Marjorie’s troubled features.
“I feel so cross sometimes when I think about that aggravating girl.” Marjorie’s answer rang with vexation. “I’ve not been in your room since you came back to Hamilton. Neither has Ronny, Jerry nor Lucy. She snubbed the four of us thoroughly in the beginning. Now proper pride won’t allow us to put ourselves in direct line for further snubs. She’s been fairly nice to Robin. Yet Robin hasn’t cared to try calling on Miss Monroe yet. She doesn’t wish to risk a snubbing, now that she’s made a little headway with our enchanted princess.”
“I could like her if she’d let me,” Muriel said bluntly. “We don’t meet often in the room except just before old ten-thirty, and in the morning. We’re both out a good deal. She is brilliant or she couldn’t cut study the way she does and not be conditioned.” There was a hint of admiration in Muriel’s observation.
“Oh-h!” Marjorie swung round in her chair until she was facing Muriel. “Why couldn’t—I wonder if you—It doesn’t seem fair to ask you, Muriel, but, since both the dorms have gone back on you,would you care to ask Miss Monroe to go home with you for Christmas?”
Marjorie fairly held her breath as she finished asking the question. This splendid way of helping the strange, beautiful girl in whom she had become so thoroughly interested she was inclined to regard as a positive dispensation of a kindly Providence.
“I might.” Muriel stared contemplatively at the anxious questioner. “I was so disappointed when my two dorms flivvered and renounced me I never thought of my old friend the Ice Queen.” She looked rather sheepish then smirked at Marjorie and said: “‘Charity begins at home.’ If I mentioned Charity in my invitation to the Ice Queen, br-r-r, she’d freeze Matchless Muriel solid at one glance. Then I couldn’t go home for Christmas. Neither could she go with me. Think how sad it would be! Two cold, shiny, slippery, glittery Ice Queens, friz solid over the holidays.”
Giggling at her own weird fancy, Muriel rose and began gathering up her packages. “I’ll ask her directly, if she’s home, dear Bean. I’ll let you know as soon as I can escape from her royal presence to tell you.”
“You’re a darling, and the most obliging personin the universe. If you’d said you’d rather not ask her, I shouldn’t have blamed you in the least. I thought, after the idea popped into my head, that I ought to ask you for Miss Monroe’s sake,” was Marjorie’s honest avowal. “Let me give you a basket to put your stuff in. Here’s the laundry basket.”
Marjorie proceeded to stack the piles of clean laundry on the couch and place Muriel’s packages in the basket instead. The two girls performed the little task with the usual amount of light talk and laughter. After Muriel had gone Marjorie sat down again at the table to indulge in a kindly little daydream which had to do with helping Muriel entertain Doris Monroe should she become Muriel’s Christmas guest.
Jerry presently drifted into the room to announce that Ronny had cruelly refused to unpack the box from California before her and Lucy. “She made us help her upstairs with it, then she coldly turned us out.” Jerry complained plaintively. “I’d have raged like a gale at such treatment only she gave me some Mexican candied fruit. It was very celostrous. My new adjective just describes the candied banana I had. What became of Matchless Muriel? I see she’s beaten it.”
“She’ll return presently,” Marjorie made mysterious answer.
But it was fully an hour afterward before Muriel suddenly popped into the room, closing the door quickly but soundlessly after her.
“Excuse my conspirator entrance,” she began just above a whisper. “I didn’t care to have the Ice Queen know where I went. I ducked out of our room without saying a word. I promised to tell you what she said, Marjorie, to our plan.” Muriel’s eyes were bright with the importance of her information. “Don’t turn all colors with surprise. She says she’ll go to Sanford with me for Christmas.”
CHAPTER VII.UNFLATTERING COMPARISON
While Marjorie Dean and Muriel Harding had been earnestly discussing a welfare invitation for difficult Doris Monroe, the latter had been spending a couple of very disagreeable hours with Leslie Cairns. Leslie had seen fit to assume the particularly dictatorial air which of all her category of unpleasant moods Doris most thoroughly detested.
To begin with Leslie had come to meet Doris at the Colonial fresh from a hot argument with the Italian, Sabatini, whom she had seen fit to call on at his garage and scathingly upbraid for being a “cheating dago quitter.” Leslie argued that, for the amount of money she had paid Sabatini he should have stood out against the threats of Signor Baretti and declined to put the busses back into service.
“You are no lady, but the creza girl; thick head you have,” Sabatini had finally shouted at Leslie when his temper broke all bounds. “You are the foolish. I don’ run the busses when Baretti say Imust, I get my franchisa take from me. Then don’ run, anyhow. You get that through your head, you can.”
“Then give back part of that money, and cut out the pet names,” Leslie had blazed back at him. “You’ll find out who you’re talking to, you thieving dago, before you are many weeks older. I’llbreak you. Put you out of business.Just like that!” Leslie had given her usual imitation of what she fondly believed would have been her father’s way of dealing with the situation.
As a matter of fact her father, Peter Cairns, would never have figured personally in any such affair. He would have placed it in the hands of a subordinate below his rank as financier, who would have in turn detailed his subordinate to act and so on down until one competent to deal with the Italian had been secured.
Leslie was not ignorant of her father’s methods of procedure but she was ambitious to prove her own power over people and circumstances. She was determined to prove to her father that she could bring about any consummation she desired either by her own clever maneuvering or by force of will. Her idea of will power was—“make other people do as you say.”
Sabatini’s parting, furious speech had been: “You try make troubla I make you the troubla, too. You see. I tell about you to the paper man. Everabuddy read ’bout you in the paper.” He had already refused to return a penny of the money she had given him. Leslie’s humor as she lounged out of the garage with an air of lofty indifference was ferocious.
This had been her third and most trying interview with the Italian, Sabatini, since the busses had again begun to run. She reflected morosely as she drove her car along Hamilton Pike to keep her engagement with Doris that not a single thing she had planned since first she had come to Hamilton College as a student had ever turned out advantageously to her. She did not in the least blame herself or her methods. She was conceitedly sure of herself. Someone or something had always “butted in” at the wrong time. Or else the persons on whom she depended to do their parts in her various schemes had failed her.
She wondered if her father had received the letter she had written him. She was confident that it would be forwarded to him if he were not in New York. She was particularly anxious to know where he was. She hoped he was not in New York. For weeks, a scheme, the most ambitious plan to maketrouble which Leslie had yet concocted, had been foremost in her thoughts. It had kept her busy ever since Thanksgiving, daily visiting her garage property and prowling in the immediate neighborhood of the dormitory building. The gray stone walls of the dormitory were well started and steadily reaching upward, a fact which seemed to furnish Leslie with deep though frowning interest.
Coming within sight of the dormitory that afternoon she had glanced toward it and given a short angry laugh. She had then stopped her car for a moment to compare the activities on the dormitory lot with those going on at her garage site. The operation of tearing down the old houses in the block she had purchased, and afterward clearing the ground, had gone very slowly. The contractor who had charge of that part of the work had dragged it, so as to benefit himself. Under honest management the operation should have been far enough advanced at least to show the garage cellar dug. As it was the ground she owned was yet partially littered with the debris of demolishment.
When she had finally arrived at the Colonial there to find Doris waiting for her at one of the tables she had reached a point where nothing could please her. On the way from the dormitory site to theColonial she had decided to go to New York alone over the holidays. She had important work to do. She did not propose to allow entertaining Doris to interfere with it.
Her first words to Doris on seating herself at the table had been: “The trip to New York is off, Goldie. I can’t take you with me, I mean. I have to go, but entirely on business, I must go alone.”
Her disappointment very keen on hearing such depressing news, Doris had received Leslie’s announcement with bad grace. More, she had accused Leslie of not being a person of her word. The two girls had argued and squabbled as was their wont. Doris was particularly incensed over the fact that she had refused two invitations from adoring freshmen to go home with them for the holidays. Three different sophs had also extended her invitations. She had refused them all because she most fancied the New York trip. Now Leslie had changed her mind and she, Doris Monroe, would be the only loser.
Leslie had relied on her most sarcastic, overbearing manner to cope with Doris’s indignant explosion. As before, when they had stood out against each other, Leslie found her match. Doris proved herself so utterly, scornfully thorny that Leslie finallybacked water and volunteered the sulky promise that if she possibly could she would take Doris to New York as she had first agreed. Doris herself had not asked it. Neither had she appeared to take note of the promise. When she left Leslie at the door of the Colonial, refusing to enter her car, she had merely said “good-bye” in the iciest of tones. This did not worry Leslie. It was not the first time Doris had walked away miffed.
Doris, however, was not only angry at Leslie for her wilful unreliability, she was experiencing a healthy contempt for Leslie herself. She contrasted Leslie’s standards and ideals with those of the girls on the campus whom she was beginning to know, understand and like. She liked the jolly, worshipping freshmen who had made so much of her. They were an honorable set. She liked Louise Walker, Calista Wilmot and Charlotte Robbins particularly among the sophs. She admired Gussie Forbes, though she never went near her. She knew Gussie to be devoted to Marjorie Dean. She had quite a secret crush on Robin Page, though she would have died rather than admit it. She liked Phyllis Moore and Barbara Severn. She also liked Muriel and admired her for her sturdy principles. Shekept these likes to herself, however, pretending to be more indifferent than she was.
She could not be among such girls long without discerning the difference between their ethical standards and those of Leslie Cairns. She detested Leslie’s unscrupulousness, yet there were times when she admired the ex-student’s sang froid. She saw the really humorous, clever side of Leslie and felt vaguely sorry for her because she was so unprepossessing. She realized Leslie’s power through money, but she had lost her respect for the lawless girl on that head.
She had hurried into the early winter twilight from the tea room feeling as though she never wished to see Leslie Cairns again. All the way from the campus gates to Wayland Hall she continued to think darkly of what she had lost by Leslie’s selfish tactics. She had announced so confidently, in refusing other Christmas invitations, that she expected to spend the holidays in New York. Now she would not humble her pride by letting it be known that she had been disappointed.
In consequence Muriel’s invitation, delivered immediately after she reached her room, came as a consoling surprise. Instantly followed remembrance that Muriel was one of the Sanford five whom Lesliedetested. She recalled her own antagonism toward Marjorie Dean. To accept a Christmas invitation to Muriel’s home meant the acceptance of Muriel’s chums as friendly acquaintances. It flashed upon Doris in that moment of self-examination that there was no reason why she should not accept as her friends the four Sanford girls who were Muriel Harding’s intimates.
Following that illuminating flash came a thought far from noble. It took strong hold of Doris. How piqued Leslie Cairns would be were she to accept Muriel’s invitation. It would serve Leslie right. It would show her that she, Doris Monroe, had the courage of independence. She had no faith in Leslie’s final grudging assurance that the trip to New York should be made as they had planned it. Leslie had changed her mind once, she was likely to disappoint her again.
Thought of Leslie and a resentful desire to exasperate her completely outweighed consideration of the purely social side of Muriel’s invitation. Doris’s momentary hesitation after Muriel had invited her did not arise, as Muriel had surmised, from regretful embarrassment at her lack of cordiality toward Muriel’s chums. Doris’s mind was fully occupied with one idea—the beneficial effect her trip to Sanfordwould have upon Leslie. She would write Leslie a note informing her of the astonishing change in her Christmas plans. If Leslie chose to rage over the matter, she must rage it out alone. Doris resolved that she would not see Leslie again until after she had returned to the campus from the trip to Sanford.
CHAPTER VIII.LOOKING FOR TROUBLE
Doris’s thoughts were so entirely centered on the disagreeable effect her decision would have upon Leslie Cairns she did not stop to consider what her freshie and sophomore admirers might think of her change of plans. She decided to wait two days before writing to Leslie. She had been rather shaky in mathematics for a week past and needed to devote herself assiduously to it until she was beyond a stage that courted being conditioned. She had sweetly assured Muriel that she would not change her mind at the last minute.
She put off the writing of the note to Leslie until she had finished her self-appointed review in mathematics. She wished to have a free mind in which to write Leslie. Her note should be a triumph of cleverness. On this point she was determined.
In the meantime Muriel had circulated the news that Doris was to be her Christmas guest, with aninnocently smiling face. Clever Muriel did not propose to give her sophomore catch an opportunity to wriggle out of her agreement at the last minute. “It’s just as well to publish the Ice Queen’s thaw from the housetops,” she gaily confided to Jerry and Marjorie. “The amazing fact that the Ice Queen and I are chummy will have a soothing, beneficial effect upon such revolutionists as the Phonograph, the Prime Minister, and such.”
“There is some truth in your disrespectful remarks about these erring sophie sisters,” Jerry had reluctantly agreed. “We can only trust, Matchless Muriel, that you may always get away with your reckless use of pet names. I believe I’ve mentioned this hope before.”
While Doris, having coolly mapped out her own course, was as coolly pursuing her own way, Leslie was impatiently waiting to hear from her. She believed that Doris was too greatly bent on going with her to New York to remain miffed. Doris would soon write or call her on the telephone.
Instead of two days it took Doris three to complete her mathematical review. During that time she kept a “Busy” sign in frequent display upon the door, a proceeding which Muriel had advised her to do. Since her acceptance of Muriel’s invitation thetwo girls had become far more friendly than before. Both felt the relief attending the change and welcomed the pleasant interest it permitted them to exhibit in each other’s campus affairs.
On the fourth afternoon following her quarrel with Leslie Cairns, Doris hurried to her room from her trigonometry period, bent in writing the letter to Leslie. It lacked only three days of the closing of Hamilton College for the holidays. It was high time she wrote it, she reflected. During the next three busy days there would be little opportunity. She sighed audible satisfaction as she entered the room to find it deserted. She hoped Muriel would remain away until dinner time. Prudently she brought out the busy sign from its place in the table drawer and affixed it with a brass tack to an outside panel of the door.
Having finally settled herself at the study table to write she spent several minutes in thoughtful deliberation before she wrote:
“Dear Leslie:
“You know, of course, in what an annoying position you placed me by disappointing me about our New York vacation. I had been invited by a number of other girls, some of them upper class, to spendChristmas at their homes. I refused the invitations—saying that I had already been invited by a dear friend to spend the holidays in New York. Naturally, after you had failed me, I could hardly have the bad taste to go to any one of these friends, stating that I had changed my mind.
“Since you disappointed me, Miss Harding, my roommate has invited me to spend Christmas with her at her Sanford home. I have accepted. Although you said, just before I left you the other day at the Colonial, that you had re-considered, and would try to arrange the New York trip, I was not impressed. I doubted your intention to keep your word. You have a habit—”
A forceful fist applied to the door, regardless of the “Busy” sign, brought Doris to her feet with a displeased “Oh!” She stood for a brief moment, hesitating, before she made any movement toward the door. While the sign was warranted to keep away other students, it was not prohibitive to Miss Remson, the maids or the laundress.
“Oh!” she exclaimed again as her eyes took in the tall, severe figure of Julia Peyton.
The yellow-white of the sophomore’s complexion turned to dull red under the bored scrutiny of Doris’ssea-green eyes. “I saw your sign.” She rolled her black eyes toward it. “I simply had to disregard it. I knew you were alone. It was too good a chance to miss. I really had to see you.”
“Why?” was Doris’s close-clipped question. She had not yet invited the other girl into the room. She knew she was rude, but she did not care. She did not like Julia Peyton, although Julia was one of her most annoyingly devoted admirers.
“Oh, for a very important reason. To prove to you that I am a true friend, Doris,” Julia wagged her black head in time to her last four emphatic words.
“I don’t in the least understand you,” Doris returned stiffly. “Come in. I am really awfully busy. I have an important letter to—”
“I won’t stay long,” Julia assured, entering with an alacrity which indicated the importance of her own mission. Without waiting to be invited she sat down in a wicker chair and burst forth: “You’re not really going home for Christmas with Miss Harding, are you? I was told so yesterday, but I didn’t believe it. I heard the same silly report today. It worried me. I simply had to come to you with it.”
“Why should such a report worry you?” Doris demanded half in disdain.
“Because I’d hate to see you put yourself in a position where you might be ridiculed.” Julia eyed Doris with mysterious pity.
“Ridiculed?” Doris’s greenish eyes widened in instant offense. Her exclamation was one of haughty unbelief. “Do say what you are trying to say, directly,” she commanded. “I have yet to place myself open to ridicule.”
“That’s just what I told Clara,” cried Julia. “I was sure you wouldn’t go home for Christmas with that horrid Miss Harding.”
“But Iamgoing home with her,” Doris returned with elaborate unconcern. A tantalizing impulse to nettle Julia seized her. “She is not horrid. She is clever, and rather good fun.” Doris drew the chair, in which she had been sitting when Julia knocked, away from the table. She sat down and cast a measuring glance at her tiresome caller.
“You won’t think so after you know why she has invited you to her home.” The sophomore’s black brows drew together. Her round black eyes assumed their most “moony” appearance. “She invited you because she couldn’t find anybody else at Hamilton to invite. I have found out positively that she hasinvited four different off-campus girlsand everyone of them has turned her down.” Julia’s voice rose in shrill triumph. “What do you think of that.”
Without waiting to hear Doris’s opinion she rattled on maliciously. “Miss Dean and that crowd Miss Harding is chummy with have been pretending to be the ones who have invited those off-campus beggars to their homes for the holidays. I know for a fact that none of them have done much in that direction. Miss Dean, who’s supposed to be such a sweet little model of goodness and generosity, is going to entertain at home—not the off-campus frumps. Oh, no! She is going to take Miss Harper, Miss Mason, Miss Page home with her. Miss Macy will lug home that tall, blue-eyed, lazy-looking girl that’s visiting Miss Remson. Miss Lynne has invited Miss Moore and Miss Severn. Even grouchy Miss Warner is going to entertain Langly. That’s the way they benefit their precious ‘dormitory girls’ that they are always crowing about.”
“I fail to see how all this applies to me.” Doris showed plain signs of becoming frosty. She was only half interested in Julia’s lengthy, spiteful argument.
“I’m only trying to show you how selfish and what fakes that crowd of priggies are. Just the same what I said about Miss Harding having invited you becauseshe couldn’t get anyone else applies to you,” was Julia’s dogged assertion. “I heard she felt sorry for you because you—well, had no home influences—er—that you came clear from England alone and—that—and—” Julia floundered desperately, then paused.
“What does Miss Harding know of me? Nothing.” Doris sprang to her feet in a swift blaze of wrath. “Who told you she said such things of me?”
Julia solemnly shook her head. As a matter of truth she was merely repeating several of her roommate’s, Clara Carter’s, vague suppositions. “I can’t tell you that. She—er—I only heard she felt that way about you. You see, Doris, I asked you to go home with me for the holidays, but you said you were going to New York,” she reminded in reproachful tones. “I supposed you would go with Miss Cairns. All of a sudden you turned around and accepted Miss Harding’s invitation. I thought it rather unfair in you, when I had asked you first of all. I thought you might at least have come to me and said—”
“I will not be lectured by anyone!” Doris cried out angrily. “I don’t care what you thought. I could explain to you precisely why I accepted an invitationfrom Miss Harding to spend Christmas with her at her home, but I shall not do it.”
“I shouldn’t call a friendly confidence, such as I’ve just given you, a lecture. I’m sure I haven’t asked you to explain anything. I think I’d better go now. I’ve done my duty as your friend, even if you can’t understand that now. You will sometime soon, I hope.” Julia rose, stalked to the door; a picture of offended dignity. “You’ll be sorry if you go home with Miss Harding.” She could not resist this last fling. “You’ll lose caste on the campus. Remember, she has invited you as a last choice.”
“I amnotgoing home with Miss Harding.” Doris brought one slippered foot down with an angry stamp. “I suppose I ought to thank you for telling me what you have. I don’t feel like thanking anyone for anything. I shall go to New York for Christmas.”
“With Miss Cairns?” eagerly quizzed Julia.
“Yes, with Miss Cairns,” Doris answered; then added bitterly: “She has invited me to go there with her because we are friends; not because she feels sorry for me.”