“I did,” answered Anne thoughtfully; “it all but talked.”
“There’s some reason why Clarice was moved down here this year, and I’ll bet Dolly was at the root of it,” declared Lucile, emphasizing her words by pounding on the foot of the bed beside which she sat.
“By the way, Lu,” broke in Hazel shyly, “how’s your blond friend? Seen him lately?”
“Myblond friend is good!” jeered Lucile.
“Who is he? Who is he?” demanded Mary and Betty in unison. “Why haven’t we ever seen him?”
“My darlings,” said Lucile mockingly, “just because on the day we came back, a good-looking, yellow-haired youth stopped me at the top of the hill to ask where Arnold Hall was, these silly girls imagined I had a date with him.”
“Why should a fellow want Arnold Hall?” demanded Katharine in surprised tones.
“Maybe he has a sweetie here,” proposed Hazel mischievously, looking at Lucile.
“That’s an idea,” replied Lucile, flatly ignoring Hazel’s insinuations; “maybe it’s—Patricia!”
“Oh, no,” contradicted Anne; “she never saw him before the day we came down.” Too late she realized what she had admitted.
“Came down! Oh, then he was onyourtrain. Ah, ha! Now we’re getting at something!” exulted Lucile.
Poor Anne’s fair complexion changed to a bright pink, as she struggled to make her words sound casual.
“He sat across from us, and we happened to notice him because he was so good-looking. We haven’t seen him for a long time.”
“I have,” spoke up Jane; “and you’d never guess where.”
“Then tell us,” said Frances.
“Last night, I was coming from the library, and because it was rather late, I took a chance on cutting through the yard back of here. As I got to the step up into this yard, I heard the sound of a typewriter in Big House. It surprised me; for I understand Mrs. Brock is quite elderly. I glanced carelessly up at the lighted windows, and there in a second floor room facing this way, sat our unknown blond friend.”
“Maybe he’s her son,” proposed Katharine.
“Son, nothing! Grandson more likely,” contradicted Hazel. “Maybe the girls will meet him. Why didn’t more of us go?”
Jane laughed. “You all had a chance, but you didn’t make the most of it.”
At this moment the front door opened quietly, closed again, footsteps were heard coming along the hall, and Patricia and Clarice entered.
“Tell us just everything,” ordered Anne, making places on Jane’s bed for the newcomers.
“Well,” began Patricia slowly, “a maid led us into the living room, which is that room in front where the big bay window is; and there, before the fire, sat a tiny, white-haired old lady with the keenest brown eyes I have ever seen.”
“They bored right through one,” contributed Clarice.
“She never said a word to us, only looked up, and then tried to quiet her white Spitz which began to bark his head off at us.”
“I should think she’d be used to noise, if she has one of those,” observed Hazel; “they sho’ do bark.”
Just then Mrs. Vincent slipped into the room, and, sitting down beside Clarice, slid an arm around her, while the girls exchanged significant glances.
“When Mrs. Brock got the dog quieted down,” continued Patricia, “I said that we had come to represent the girls on our floor, and apologize for the excessive noise tonight; that we had not intended to annoy anyone, and had not even thought of it as a possibility; we were only having a little party among ourselves.”
“‘Drinking party, I suppose!’ she snapped, looking us over from head to foot, for she hadn’t asked us to sit down.”
“I’ll bet she knows how many buttons are on my blouse, and even where one buttonhole is torn,” observed Clarice.
“‘We had only orangeade,’ I replied, as good-naturedly as I could; for it certainly was annoying to be addressed in the tones she used,” went on Patricia.
“‘Are you sure of that?’ she demanded, fixing her brown eyes on me, like crabs. ‘I distinctly heard some one singing a song about wanting a drink.’”
A burst of laughter from the girls interrupted Patricia’s story, while Jane ruffled Hazel’s curls.
“ThenItook a hand,” announced Clarice.
“‘You did,’ I told her, ‘and we had several; but they were all made of oranges, just as Patricia has told you. We may be noisy, but we’re not liars!’”
“What did she say?” asked Jane eagerly.
“Nothing; she just glared at me, and turned back to Pat,” replied Clarice.
“‘Aside from the personal annoyance,’ she went on,” continued Patricia, “‘I consider it highly detrimental to the reputation of college women to have such yelling and noise emanating from a supposedly respectable dormitory.’ Before we could answer, fortunately, perhaps, for I didn’t know what to say next,” went on Patricia, “she pressed a bell near her chair, and almost immediately we heard footsteps on the stairs, the heavy portieres between the living room and the hall were pushed aside, and there stood—”
“The good-looking young blond!” finished Hazel, excitedly clasping and unclasping her hands.
“Why, how did you know?” demanded Patricia in surprise.
“I saw him over there in the window last night, and the girls were just saying that perhaps you would meet him,” replied Jane. “But please go on.”
“‘Norman Young, my secretary,’ said the old lady, looking inquiringly at us. Clarice supplied our names, and the youth bowed gravely. ‘Norman,’ she asked, ‘did you type the letter I dictated earlier this evening?’
“‘Not yet, Mrs. Brock,’ he said.
“‘You need not write it. That’s all,’ she added curtly, as the young man lingered a moment, eyeing Clarice. As soon as he had disappeared, she turned to us again. ‘You may go too,’ she announced abruptly; ‘and don’t let me hear such a rumpus over there again.’ Then Clarice spoke up. ‘Mrs. Brock, we told you we were sorry, and we are; but we can’t promise never to make another sound, when we have parties, or at any other time. There are forty-five girls in the house, and it’s unreasonable to expect us to be as quiet as deaf-mutes.’ Before she could get her breath to annihilate Clarice, which I thought she would do, I broke in and said that perhaps she’d like us and understand college life better if she came over to Arnold Hall some time and got acquainted with the girls and see how we live.
“‘Maybe I should,’ she replied slowly, and really her face changed so that I thought she was going to smile.”
“Now you havedoneit, Pats,” groaned Anne.
“Whatever possessed you to say that?” complained Betty.
“Who in creationisshe, that she thinks she can take such a hand in our affairs?” demanded Katharine hotly.
“Well, I felt sorry for her,” contended Patricia stoutly. “She’s old, and all alone in that big house—”
“Oh, no, Pats, not alone; think of that attractive youth,” protested Hazel.
“And I think she’s longing for human contacts,” continued Patricia.
“She seems to be,” remarked Lucile sarcastically.
“And that’s why she is annoyed by our fun, kind of an outsider envying those who are on the inside; like a kid who’s not invited to a party, and so wants to break it up,” concluded Patricia.
“Sentimental Pat!” scoffed Lucile.
“I’m sorry you are all annoyed about it,” said Patricia, flushing, “but I suddenly felt so sorry for her that I spoke before I thought. I never dreamed you’d object to her. Probably she won’t come, anyhow.”
“I think,” said Jane emphatically, “that you handled the matter in the best possible way. What would we gain by fighting with her? Putting aside of any question of kindness, it’s much wiser for us to be friendly with her, if she will let us.”
“I agree with you, Jane,” said Mrs. Vincent, speaking for the first time, and getting up to go back to her own room. “Now get to bed as quickly as possible,” she added, as the clock struck eleven.
There were three people in the college colony who were wakeful that night: Patricia tossed from side to side, as she kept going over in her mind the inexorable circumstances which continued to involve her in strange situations with Norman Young. Directly above her, on the third floor, Rhoda the maid was shedding tears as she worried over the affairs of one near and dear to her. In his room across the two back yards, Norman Young alternately pondered over Clarice’s pretty face and the solving of a problem which involved some cleverness on his part.
“Who’s going to the Greystone game?” asked Hazel, as part of the Alley Gang was walking back to the Hall after lunch one crisp sunny day in October.
“I am,” replied Anne.
“Ted?” queried Patricia, curiously.
Anne nodded, adding with a broad grin, “Katharine and Professor Boyd are going with us.”
Oliver Boyd was a young instructor, who had been engaged for the History Department that fall, a slim, attractive youth, whose big brown eyes looked shyly out from behind octagon glasses, and whose dark skin made the girls, when they wanted to tease Katharine, say he must have Indian blood in his veins. A melodious voice with a southern accent completed an ensemble that had proved most intriguing to the women of Granard. All the girls smiled upon him, and the registration in History V was unusually heavy that term. That he was girl-shy had been the consensus of opinion until one day Katharine happened to run across him in the Varsity Book Shoppe; and a discussion, begun from the talkative Katharine over the respective merits of note book covers No. 1 and No. 3, had been the beginning of the most talked-of of college romances.
“Now just wouldn’t a retiring daisy like Professor Boyd pick a roughneck like Katharine?” commented Lucile disgustedly. “I should think she’d scare him to death.”
“You’re just jealous!” retorted Hazel, quick to come to the support of her room mate.
“Indeed I’m not,” contradicted Lucile promptly; “but you can’t deny that they’re no more suited to each other than—”
“Oh, but opposites attract,” interrupted Betty; “remember your psychology, or was it physics?”
“Who else is going to the game?” inquired Jane, returning to the original topic of conversation in an attempt to check the friction.
“Francie and I are driving down,” replied Patricia, smiling down at the round-faced little girl beside her. For several weeks now, Patricia had been the proud possessor of the car which her father had bought for her.
“Where’s the Boy Friend?” asked Hazel curiously, turning to look at Frances.
“On the outs,” was the quick reply.
“How come?” inquired Lucile.
“Well, Joe said he wished Tut Miller would get a chance to play in the Greystone game—”
“Oh—oh!” protested her companions in chorus.
“Yes, that’s just the way I felt,” asserted Frances; “so we promptly had a row.”
“But why,” protested Jane, “should he want Jack Dunn to be taken out of the lineup. He’s a far better player than Tut.”
“I know, but I figured it out this way: Joe and Tut were at Huron Prep together, and Joe’s got an awful case on Tut. When football practice started, Tut went over big until Jack began to show what he was made of.”
“And naturally Joe sizzled when Jack got on the regulars and Tut was his sub,” finished Jane.
“Jack’s the better of the two, of course,” agreed Anne; “but I don’t fall for him the way the rest of you do. He seems to me to be rather too sure of himself.”
“Who has a better right?” asked Lucile sharply. “He’s been the absolute idol of this college and town ever since he made the team.”
Before this challenge could be taken up, there was a sound of running footsteps behind them, and Clarice violently pushed in between Jane and Anne.
“What do you think?” she cried, noisily.
“We don’t think,” retorted Lucile crisply. “We leave that for you.”
“What is the excitement, Clarice?” inquired Jane quickly, trying to cover Lucile’s unkind thrust at Clarice’s poor scholarship.
“You’d never guess with whom I am going to the Greystone game.”
“Then tell us quickly,” said Frances, “before we all die of suspense.”
“Norman Young! He asked me in Physics Lab this morning, and—”
“Physics Lab,” repeated Betty in puzzled tones. “How did he happen to be there?”
“Didn’t you know that he registered late, and is a special student here!” asked Jane in surprise.
“No; I—”
“Where have you been all this term?” demanded Hazel in disgust.
“Betty is more interested in certain people from home than she is in Granard students,” explained Lucile in significant tones.
“I am not!” contradicted Betty promptly.
“Don’t bother; she’s only trying to tease you,” said Jane soothingly, flinging an arm across Betty’s shoulder. “If I had a devoted boy friend who wrote me letters every other day, and came down to spend week ends here, I shouldn’t know all the college gossip either.”
Meanwhile Anne was whispering to Patricia: “Wonder how Lucile likes Clarice’s walking off with Norman.”
“Why?” said Pat. “I didn’t know that she considered him her special property. She’s been going around with Tut.”
“I’m not sure that she does, only I feel it in my bones, someway, that the meeting at ‘Hill Top’ on the day we arrived was not all chance. Idoknow that she pricks up her ears whenever he is mentioned.”
They had reached the library, and Pat reluctantly left her companions.
“I’m due here, kids,” she called from the third step, as Jane demanded why she was deserting them. “Something I’ve got to look up. See you later.” Waving her hand gaily, she ran up the long flight of steps and entered the old grey building.
Some of the rooms were used for graduate work, or small classes of men students; and Patricia could hear Professor Donnell’s voice quite distinctly as she passed down the corridor to the reference department. Three-quarters of an hour later, having secured the necessary information, she was just approaching the outside doorway when Professor Donnell’s class came out of its room, right behind her. Patricia was rather shy with strangers, and hurried a bit to keep well ahead of the men going down the steps. In her haste, she failed to notice, on a step part way down the flight, some matted, damp leaves. Her heel slipped on one of them, and she rolled to the bottom of the flight. Eighteen men promptly sprang to her assistance, but the long legs of a thin dark boy brought him first upon the scene.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, raising Patricia to her feet.
Patricia looked up into solicitous blue eyes, bent anxiously upon her, and shakily replied that she didn’t think so.
“That was a nasty fall,” continued the boy, still carefully holding her by the arm as if he feared she might collapse any minute.
The other men had gathered about her in a semi-circle, and Patricia’s color came back with a rush, and flushed her face to a scarlet which matched the little hat which had fallen off during her descent and which one of the men now presented to her.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“Lucile would say, if she could see me now, that I fell purposely,” thought Patricia, adjusting the gay little hat with shaking fingers. Then an awful thought occurred to her. Maybe these men thought the same thing! People resorted to all kinds of tricks to meet celebrities, and Jack Dunn’s acquaintanceship was much sought after.
“I don’t know how I happened to fall,” she said, trying to laugh. “I’m not usually so careless.”
“There were some wet leaves on one of the steps,” explained her rescuer, bending his head protectively over her.
It was a fine shaped head, topped by wavy brown hair flung back from a broad, very white forehead. The hands on her arm were shapely, and the fingers long and slender. A thoroughbred, thought Patricia.
“If you’ll tell me where you were going,” he continued, motioning his companions peremptorily away, “I’ll walk along with you.”
“Oh, I don’t want to trouble you further,” protested Patricia. “I’m quite all right now.”
“You’re shaking like a leaf,” contradicted her escort gently, falling into step beside her, as they started across the campus. “Let’s sit down over there a while,” he added, as they approached a stone bench under a tree near the Fine Arts Building; “or have you a class now?”
“No, not until three-thirty.”
“What year are you?” he began, as soon as they were seated. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”
“I’m a Sophomore, and my name, by the way, is Patricia Randall.”
“Mine is Jack Dunn,” said the boy, as simply as if his name were not known the length and breadth of the campus.
“I’m afraid you are not very observing,” remarked Patricia.
“Why?”
“Because we are in the same Shakespeare class, and have been all this term.”
“Oh, well, we’re seated alphabetically. I’m down in the front of the room, and you must be in the back. So that lets me out.”
Three-thirty arrived long before they finished exchanging personal bits of information, and Jack left Patricia at the door of her classroom with a promise to see her again very soon.
“How in the world did you get hold of him?” whispered Jane excitedly, as Patricia took her seat.
“Tell you later,” promised Patricia, as Professor Yates glanced in their direction.
After the class was over, the girls managed to get away from the rest of the crowd; so, as they walked slowly across the campus, Patricia told the story of the fall and its consequences.
“You’re a lucky girl!” sighed Jane, as she finished.
“To have broken no bones?” inquired Patricia innocently.
“Yes, just that,” replied her companion, with exaggerated emphasis. “Broken hearts not taken into account.”
“I suppose the girls will razz the life out of me,” commented Patricia, after a short pause.
“Don’t tell them anything about it, then. I shan’t mention it.”
“But suppose some of them saw us together?”
“That’s all right. If they don’t know how you met him, it will give them something to think about.”
That evening Patricia was keenly aware of curious eyes fixed upon her as she stood in front of Arnold Hall talking to Jack Dunn. He had stepped up to her just as she was following Jane and Anne to the post office after dinner. The girls obligingly hurried on and left the two together, but Patricia’s cheeks were red with the knowledge that they were talking about her as they went back to the dorm.
“I was wondering if you’d go to see Arliss with me,” began Jack. “He’s on at the Plaza, and we’d be just in time for the early performance.”
“I should like to see it,” replied Patricia slowly; “but—yes, I’ll go. I’m pretty sure Jane will sign the Black Book for me if I don’t go in.”
“The Black Book?” repeated Jack in puzzled tones.
As they started downtown, Patricia told him all about the Arnold Hall customs and rules, and answered his questions regarding the identity of several of the Alley Gang.
“You see,” he said, “I don’t know many of the girls here; for I came only this year, transferred from Floynton University—”
“And I from Brentwood,” interrupted Patricia. “Isn’t that funny?”
“We ought to be friends, then, both strangers in a strange land. Shall we?”
“I don’t mind.”
After leaving the movie, they strolled slowly back to College Hill, chatting as if they had known each other always.
“Will you come in?” asked Patricia, as they reached Arnold Hall.
“Like to, but you see I’m in training and not supposed to be out too late; besides I have some boning to do yet.”
“I don’t see when you ever get any studying done; you’re in classes all morning as well as part of the afternoon, and on the athletic field until dark.”
“It doesn’t leave me much time, and I’ve just got to make good here.”
“You mean in order to keep on the team?”
“Of course; but there’s another reason too. You see, my dad isn’t well enough off to send me to Granard himself; and, well, when you’re indebted to somebody else for a big chance, why, you’ve justgotto make good.”
“I know just how that is; for I’m in the same position myself,” replied Patricia impulsively.
“You are?” questioned Jack. “Then you would understand.”
“Good evening,” said a smooth, low voice behind them, and they turned to face Norman Young.
“How are you?” replied Jack briefly, while Patricia murmured a response to the newcomer’s greeting.
“Clarice in?” queried Norman as he turned and went up the walk toward the house.
“I don’t know,” replied Patricia.
“I don’t like that fellow,” observed Jack, as the door closed upon Young.
“You don’t? Why?”
“Queer acting guy. Never caught him in anything; in fact I don’t know him very well, but I don’t trust him. Comes out and sits on the side lines to watch practice quite often, and he gives me the jitters. You know him well?”
“No, I don’t. I was introduced to him at Mrs. Brock’s house. He’s her secretary.”
“Who’s Mrs. Brock?”
Briefly Patricia told him of their contact with the eccentric inhabitant of Big House.
“She must be crazy!” declared Jack, as she finished her story. “You’d better not have anything to do with her. Say, what does she look like?” as a sudden idea occurred to him.
Patricia described her as well as she could.
“The very same!” ejaculated the boy, when Patricia paused.
“The same—what do you mean?” inquired the girl, looking at him with a puzzled expression.
“I was walking along Craig Street, right back of the campus, you know, one day about two weeks ago, when I noticed a little woman ahead of me drop a small bag. Apparently, she didn’t notice her loss; for she kept right on. I picked up the pocketbook, hurried on, and gave it to her. She looked at me sharply with the most piercing brown eyes I have ever seen—”
“That’s she!” interrupted Patricia. “Those eyes fasten themselves on you just like tiny crabs.”
“I presented the bag and told her where I found it. She said curtly: ‘So you’re really honest. I didn’t think anybody was, any more.’ It made me mad, so I merely said: ‘That is one of the things upon which I pride myself,’ bowed and hurried on. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I thought I heard her laugh. Must be cuckoo.”
“She’s certainly queer, to say the least,” agreed Patricia. “I think I’d better go in, now. Thanks for the movie; I enjoyed it.”
“Wait a minute,” urged the boy, laying a hand on her arm. “You’re going to see the Greystone game; aren’t you?”
“Yes; Frances and I are going to drive down together.”
“I’ll get your tickets, then. I’d like you to be where you can get a good view, since you’ve never been to a real big game before.”
“Thanks a lot,” said Patricia gratefully, as she started up the steps. “Good night.”
“Bring them to you in Shakespeare class Friday,” called Jack, just as Norman and Clarice came out onto the porch.
Shortly after the street was again deserted, a masculine figure slipped out of a thick clump of shrubbery near the dormitory, and, keeping well in the heavy shadows which edged Arnold Hall on one side, slunk off into the darkness.
“Will somebody stop that bell!” called Patricia frantically one afternoon a week later.
She and Anne were in their room, trying to cram for a test in French.
“No!” shouted Clarice and Hazel simultaneously. “We want to wear out the battery before tonight; and the coast is clear now.”
Patricia gave her door a shove which made it close with a bang, and stuffed her fingers into her ears, while Anne did likewise. Presently the door flew open again to admit Mary.
“What’s the idea?” she exclaimed, viewing the two girls with alarm.
“That awful bell!” replied Anne briefly, withdrawing her fingers from ears. “What do you suppose Clarice and Hazel are up to?”
“I’m not sure, but I think they’re planning to step out tonight.”
“Rose Troy?” queried Anne.
“I suppose so,” said Mary anxiously.
Rose Troy was not a student at Granard, but at one of the college affairs to which outsiders were admitted, she had met Hazel and Clarice, taken a fancy to them, and subsequently invited them to her home several times. She entertained lavishly, and some of the girls were frankly envious of the favored two; others strongly disapproved of the growing intimacy.
“But what’s the bell got to do with it?” inquired Patricia.
“You poor innocent!” retorted Mary. “If the bell won’t ring when the back door is opened—and they find some way to have said back door opened for them—Doll can never tell what time the girls come home.”
“I wish Hazel hadn’t gotten so intimate with Clarice all of a sudden,” mused Anne. “I wonder how it happened.”
“Birds of a feather,” began Mary.
“Don’t say that. Hazel is just like Clarice!” protested Anne vehemently.
“Wait till I finish,” countered Mary calmly. “I was going to say that they both love a good time, and both let their studying go until the eleventh hour; furthermore, Hazel is terribly restless this year. I can’t make out just what is the matter with her, and Clarice is a kind of outlet.”
“Rose Troy’s attentions are very bad for both of them, I think; and perhaps partly explains their intimacy,” said Anne.
“How?” inquired Mary bluntly.
“Well, they have a common interest in which the rest of us have no part, and Rose’s parties are somewhat stimulating, I imagine; more sophisticated than ours. Rose has lots of boy friends, you know.”
“Ought we to do anything, about tonight, I wonder,” mused Anne.
“No!” replied Mary promptly. “What right have we to object if those two silly kids want to run the risk of getting into trouble?”
Suddenly the bell stopped ringing, and quiet settled down upon the house, just as Mrs. Vincent entered the front door, with her shadow, Ivan Zahn.
“But,” persisted Patricia, still puzzled, “how will they manage to get in without Dolly’s knowledge?”
“Oh, Clarice, on some pretext or other—she’ll know how—will ask for permission for both of them to stay out an hour later than usual. Doll will give it, and go to bed at the regular time. Then, with the back door key, which I suppose they will secure during the early evening, they will be able to get in and go to bed without anyone being the wiser.”
“Clarice certainly has some stand-in with Dolly,” observed Anne.
“She works hard enough for it,” retorted Mary.
“What do you mean?” inquired Patricia.
“Oh, Clarice is always sending Doll flowers, or candy, and naturally it makes an ‘imprint’; as of course it’s intended to.”
About two o’clock next morning, Patricia was suddenly wakened by a flash of light. Wide awake in an instant, she waited tensely for the peal of thunder which she expected would accompany it—forgetting that the season for such storms was over. Electric storms were Patricia’s chief phobia; but no sound disturbed the stillness. Then the flash was repeated; again she waited, but again perfect quiet reigned. Just as she decided that one of the street lights must be blinking, a third time the light played on the wall, this time more slowly. With a fast-beating heart, she sat up, reached for her bathrobe, and stole softly to the window. On the path below, in the faint light from the street lamp, she could distinguish Clarice and Hazel. Evidently they could not get in, and had used a flash light to attract her attention. How to let them know that she saw them, without making any noise, was a problem which she solved by passing a handkerchief back and forth near the screen, hoping that its whiteness would be visible against the dark background of the room. Frantic gestures toward the back door answered her efforts. They must have forgotten the key. Creeping noiselessly toward her door, Patricia succeeded in opening it quietly and stealing down the hall without arousing anyone. Fortunately, the door into the narrow passage leading to the back entrance was open, and Patricia drew it carefully to behind her, in order to keep any sounds from the front of the house. With her heart in her throat, she turned the key, bit by bit, until the lock was released. With the same care, she opened the door wide enough to admit the two girls who were pressed close to its frame. As she was about to close it again, she noticed a bright light in Big House—in the room occupied by Norman Young. There was a slight jar as the door settled into place again, and the three girls stood silent, shaking with nervous chills, until they felt quite sure that no one had been wakened. Then, without a word, they all crept to their rooms.
“Come on up to the Coffee Shoppe with me for lunch, Pat,” begged Hazel the following noon, as they left the house with the rest of the crowd for Horton Hall. “I want to talk with you.”
In one of the cozy stalls at the back of the restaurant, after their order was filled, Hazel began bluntly:
“You’re a good sport, Pat. It was darned white of you to let us in last night, and never say a word about it.”
“Was the party worth the trouble?” asked Patricia, playing with the salt cellar nervously, and not knowing exactly what to say.
“To be frank, it was not. I never had such a fright in my life. Rose’s party was all right. We had fun, out, after the eats, one of the boys proposed driving out to Kleg’s—”
“Theroadhouse?” exclaimed Patricia.
Hazel nodded.
“Everybody seemed keen to go, so I wasn’t going to be a spoilsport. When we got there, we found a big crowd, and had trouble getting tables together. Luckily Clarice and I, and a couple of fellows you don’t know, got places in a back corner near a side door, like this.”
Hazel placed a piece of roll and a match on the table to show the exact relative location.
“We hadn’t been there half an hour when there was a raid—”
“Hazel!” gasped Patricia, with horror in her eyes and voice.
“While the first excitement was going on in the front room the two fellows who were with us hustled us quietly out of the side door, into Pete’s car, and brought us home. And were we lucky!”
“You don’t know how lucky,” said Patricia gravely. “Did you see this morning’s paper?”
“No, don’t tell me it was reported!”
“It certainly was—”
“Were our names in?” demanded Hazel breathlessly.
“Not yours or Clarice’s, but several of the men’s, as well as Rose’s and her sister’s. Only for a kind Providence, you and Clarice might have been included,” said Patricia severely, gazing sternly at the white-faced girl opposite her.
“I’m through!” declared Hazel finally. “This is the last time I’ll break the college rules; and—”
“And what about Rose?” added Patricia. “She’s not good for you, Hazel. You haven’t the time or money to go with anyone like that; and her ideals and standards are different from ours.”
Hazel looked at her plate and was silent so long, that Patricia began to feel as if she had been too frank.
“You’re right, I guess,” she said finally. “I’ll give her up, even though I suppose she’ll think I am an awful quitter.”
“Good for you!” commended Patricia heartily, beginning again on her lunch.
“Do you suppose, Pat,” asked Hazel, after a short pause, “that the college authorities will hear that Clarice and I were mixed up in the affair?”
“I don’t imagine so; the others were all outsiders, weren’t they?”
“Yes, but, Pats; at Kleg’s I saw Norman Young.”
“Did he see you?” inquired Patricia sharply, recalling Jack’s impression of the blond youth.
“I don’t think so; but you never can tell. He was at a table half way down the room; and Pat, who do you suppose was with him?”
“Couldn’t guess.”
“Rhoda!”
“OurRhoda?” repeated Patricia, unbelievingly.
Hazel nodded.
“Don’t let’s say anything about it toanybody,” proposed Patricia after a minute’s thought. “It’s awfully queer, but since we can’t understand it, there’s no object in creating talk and making things unpleasant for Rhoda.”
“No, of course not. I like Rhoda.”
“We all do, and I guess she needs her job. She said something one day about some one being dependent on her.”
“Do you suppose Norman goes with her?” continued Hazel, scraping up the last of her chocolate pudding.
“I haven’t any idea. He’s been out with Clarice quite often of late. I hope she doesn’t hear about Rhoda.”
“I don’t think she saw them last night, and I didn’t mention it. But Clarice wouldn’t care, as long as she had somebody to step out with. It’s a case ofsomeboy with her, not any particular one,” replied Hazel, getting up and dropping her purse just outside the stall.
At the same moment a youth, leaving the next stall, picked up the purse and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” murmured Hazel, glancing up at the man.
To her amazement and distress, she looked full into the pale grey eyes of Norman Young.
“Going back to college?” he asked, looking first at Hazel and then at Patricia, who had just slipped out of her seat.
“Yes,” replied Patricia briefly, when Hazel did not respond.
“So am I. Guess I’ll walk along with you, if you don’t mind,” continued the boy, following them out of the shop.
Once on the street, he began to talk about the Greystone game.
“There’s a lot of money up on that game,” he remarked. “Not only among the students, but also among the townsfolk. Greystone has a player almost as famous as our Dunn, and the betting between the two factions is heavy. If Dunn were to be out of the game for any reason—”
“What would be likely to keep him out?” inquired Hazel sharply, while Patricia listened breathlessly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” laughed Norman; “probably nothing at all. I was only mentioning an improbable chance of such a thing. But, if he were, the Greystone supporters would be in line to win a heap of dough.”
“What kind of a place is Greystone?” asked Hazel.
“About the size of Granard. People of the town are just as loyal to their college as we are here. Maybe a little rougher crowd than ours.”
“Do you think Tut Miller has any chance of being put in for part of the game?” asked Patricia anxiously, the conversation of the morning recurring to her.
“How should I know?” questioned the boy, looking straight into Patricia’s eyes with a peculiar, twisted smile.
“You must know all the gridiron gossip,” asserted Hazel.
“Why should I? I’m neither coach nor manager.”
“No, but you watch practice a lot,” said Patricia before Hazel could reply.
“How do you know?” he inquired curtly.
Patricia laughed. “Did you ever know anything to be kept quiet in a college community?”
Norman looked searchingly at her for a moment, then replied gravely: “Yes, a few things.”
They had reached Clinton Hall by that time, and the girls left Norman at the steps with a hasty “We’re going in here. Goodbye.”
“Pat!” gasped Hazel, clasping the other girl’s arm in a frenzied grasp as they hurried along the hall toward their classroom. “Do you suppose he heard what we were talking about at lunch? He was evidently in the stall next to us, all the time.”
“I hardly think so. We were talking very low,” replied Patricia kindly, pressing Hazel’s cold fingers.
“He acted very funny, I thought,” chattered Hazel, trying to control the nervous chills which shook her.
“Pull yourself together,” ordered Patricia sternly. “If he did, we can’t change it by getting wrought up over it; but I think we’ll just take it for granted that he didn’t. Don’t worry,” she added, as they entered Professor Donnell’s classroom.
Patricia gave good advice to others, but during the class which followed, her mind dwelt persistently and anxiously on Norman’s reference to Jack’spossiblybeing out of the game. Had Joe some secret influence which might, at the last minute, result in Tut getting his chance? Did Norman have some inside information? Or was his supposition as casual as he tried to make it sound. Ought she to tell Jack, or would that tend to make things worse?
“Mademoiselle Randall,” Professor Donnell’s smooth voice broke into her reveries, “de quoi avons nous lu?”
“De foot balle,” replied Patricia promptly; then realized, too late, what an absurd reply she had made.