автордың кітабын онлайн тегін оқу  Marjorie Dean, Marvelous Manager

Josephine Chase

Leslie had posted herself behind the barrier of leafy green for the express purpose of watching the working out of a little plan of her own.

(Page 120)        (Marjorie Dean, Marvelous Manager)

MARJORIE DEAN
MARVELOUS MANAGER

By PAULINE LESTER

Author of

“The Marjorie Dean High School Series,” “The

Marjorie Dean College Series,” “The Marjorie

Dean Post-Graduate Series,” etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers              New York

Printed in U. S. A.

THE MARJORIE DEAN

POST-GRADUATE SERIES

A SERIES FOR GIRLS 12 TO 18 YEARS OF AGE

By PAULINE LESTER

MARJORIE DEAN, POST-GRADUATE

MARJORIE DEAN, MARVELOUS MANAGER

MARJORIE DEAN AT HAMILTON ARMS

MARJORIE DEAN’S ROMANCE

Copyright, 1925

By A. L. BURT COMPANY

MARJORIE DEAN, MARVELOUS MANAGER

Made in “U. S. A.”

MARJORIE DEAN

MARVELOUS MANAGER

CHAPTER I.
 
ACROSS THE CAMPUS

“To go, or not to go?—that is the question,” paraphrased Marjorie Dean glancing up from the open letter in her hand. She fixed her eyes on Jerry Macy, her room-mate as though trying to read what was in her chum’s mind.

“Whether ’tis nobler to eat Baretti’s turk,

And circulate upon the campus drear;

Or to take luggage and be off for home

To roost four days upon the family tree.”

Jerry aptly supplied.

“Fine, Jeremiah. I certainly would love to roost on the Deans’ family tree for four blessed days.” Marjorie’s voice rang with wistfulness. “I’ve tried to persuade myself into believing that it won’t make much difference to the dormitory girls if we decide we’d best go home for Thanksgiving. But I’m not sure.” Marjorie knitted troubled brows. “This is the tenth,” she reflected aloud. “Whether we go home, or whether we stay on the campus over Thanksgiving, we’ve enough to do beforehand to keep us hustling.” She sprang up from her chair as though animated anew by the mere recollection of work yet to be done.

“Why remind me, beautiful Bean? I’m sadly aware of the fact. What we must do is organize the new Travelers’ sorority and let them see the dormitory girls through Thanksgiving. If they do nicely,” Jerry continued in patronizing tones, “their reward’ll be more work, and lots of it. If they flivver—but they won’t. We old Travelers knew how to pick out our successors. We’re safe to go home and leave our Thanksgiving stunts to our little Traveler sisters to carry out. Ha; great intellect!” Jerry admiringly patted one of her own plump shoulders. “You always do suggest such brilliant ideas, Jeremiah,” she gushed.

“How conceited you are! Still, there’s a grain of wisdom in your vain remarks.” Marjorie patted Jerry’s other shoulder. “I hereby confer upon you the high and noble order of the pat,” she declared in a deep pompous voice. She accompanied her words with several pats, each one more forceful than the last.

“The hard and croo-il order of the whack, I’ll say.” Jerry caught the conferring hand in time to save herself one last thump. “Now that I’ve been initiated into this wonderful order what happens to me next?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. Let me think.” Marjorie fixed absent eyes on Jerry as she considered the situation. “You’re to go downstairs and telephone Kathie and Lillian to come over to dinner at the Hall this evening. If they can’t come to dinner, then they must come afterward. Tell them the time has come to open the box. That will bring them.”

“You bet it will,” Jerry made slangy concurrence.

“Then I’ll depend on you to hunt Leila, Vera, Ronny, Lucy and Muriel. They’re not to dare think of another engagement.”

“Yessum.” Jerry made a respectful, bobbing bow to Marjorie. “Please, mum, may I ask what you’ll be doing, mum, about the same time I’m rushing upstairs and down?”

“I’m going over to Silverton Hall,” Marjorie returned as she crossed the room to her dress closet and reached for coat and fur cap. “I’ll see Robin, Phil and Barbara; bring them back to dinner, if I can. Thank fortune Barbara is at Silverton Hall this year instead of Acasia House. I’ll be back by five o’clock. It’s ten minutes to four now.”

“Then you’ll have to go some,” Jerry said skeptically. “If you are back here with those three girls by six o’clock I’ll give you a prize. Remember, you can’t stay to dinner at Silverton Hall. We’ve Kathie and Lillian to consider.”

“The prize is as good as won. What are you going to give me?” Marjorie’s inquiry was slyly coaxing. She sidled confidently up to Jerry.

“Never mind now.” Jerry waved her away. “Come back at five o’clock and ask me.”

“I will. I’m going z-i-p-p across the campus. Just like that!” Marjorie made a lightning forward pass with one arm. “I’m going to have a wind sail. There’s a dandy stiff wind blowing today. Mary Raymond and I used to take our school umbrellas when we were little girls and go out on a windy day with them. It was a regular game. We named it ‘wind sails.’ We’d let the wind blow us along. Sometimes the umbrellas would turn inside out, or the wind would whisk them away from us and we’d have to chase them a long way. Once mine blew into the river, and once a big boy caught Mary’s umbrella and ran off with it. We never saw either of those bumbershoots again.”

Marjorie paused at the door to laugh at the recollection of childhood adventures. “Oh, Jerry,” she changed the subject with sudden abruptness, “we’ll have to dig up some eats for a spread. Whoever dreamed of gathering in the Travelers without feeding them?”

“I’ll ask Leila to run us into town for eats as soon as you come back. That’s an incentive to hurry,” bribed Jerry.

“There are times when I can’t help appreciating you, Jeremiah. Good-bye. I’m in such a hurry.” Marjorie breezily closed the door and made a speedy descent of the stairs.

She opened the massive front door of the Hall with the same gusty energy, and went down the front steps at a frisky jump. The brisk November wind caught her none too gently, blew a fluff of curls about her sparkling face and a brighter color into her rosy cheeks. She paused for an instant on the drive to inhale deeply the crisp, invigorating November air, then she set off across the campus at her best hiking stride.

With the wind at her back, noisily urging her along, she laughed enjoyingly, spread her arms wide in lieu of sails and ran with it. Passing a little delegation of lingering robins, strung along a tree limb, their feathers fluffed out, their red breasts making a bit of autumn color against the brown limb, she whistled cheerily to them.

“Naughty little fellows,” she playfully chided. “You should have started for the land of flowers long before now. You’ll have to hurry if you expect to get there in time to eat Thanksgiving dinner with your folks. I ought to take that advice to myself.”

Bump! Her eyes still lingering on the flock of birds, she collided forcefully with a girl who had deliberately courted collision. Muriel Harding, emerging from the library, had spied Marjorie from the library steps. Her mischievous love of teasing always uppermost, she had approached Marjorie unseen, bent on surprising her.

“Uh-h-h!” Muriel pretended to stagger back. “Why don’t you look where you’re going, lady?” she demanded gruffly.

“Why don’t you?” The two girls faced each other, flushed and laughing.

“I did. I decided to let you know I was near you,” confessed Muriel. “If you had been moderately observing you might have averted the crash.”

“I doubt it.” Marjorie looked her skepticism.

“So do I,” Muriel agreed so amiably that the pair again broke into laughter.

“You’d best come with me,” Marjorie invited. “Jerry’s hunting for you, but that’ll be all right. I’ve found you.” She went on to explain her errand to Silverton Hall. “Forward, march,” she concluded, taking hold of Muriel’s right arm. “Step lively. I’ve lost at least three precious minutes exchanging mostly impolite remarks with you.”

“I’ll hit up a pace,” Muriel slangily assured. “I’m nothing if not obliging. It’s fortunate for you that you met me. I am always so helpful.” Her brown eyes danced roguishly. “You must know that.”

“I’ve heard you say so.” Marjorie was purposely vague. “If I had been even moderately observing I might have noticed that you were. That is, if you really——”

“Why dwell on the subject? This is the way the wild wind goes.” She began whisking Marjorie over the half frozen ground at a mad run. Marjorie sturdily kept up with her. The two girls tore across the campus toward their goal, shrieking with laughter, bubbling over with high spirits.

They were nearing Craig Hall, one of the campus houses which they had to pass on their diagonal route to Silverton Hall, when the front door of the house opened and two young women came out on the veranda, then descended the steps. Evidently their ears caught the sounds of mirth emanating from the pair of exuberant P. G.’s. Two pairs of eyes, one pair coldly green, the other small, black and shrewd, immediately fastened on Marjorie and Muriel.

“Look who’s here. Keep right on going,” Muriel muttered in Marjorie’s ear. She nodded to one of the two girls who had come from Craig Hall and were now within a few feet of her and Marjorie. Her nod was courteous rather than friendly. The response she received was a stiff inclination from Doris Monroe’s golden head.

Marjorie had obeyed Muriel’s muttered direction. For the barest instant her clear, truthful gaze met, impersonally, the narrowing, hostile eyes of Leslie Cairns. She then glanced serenely away from Leslie. She had long since ceased to regard Leslie Cairns with personal displeasure. This in spite of the ex-student’s treacherous attempt to frustrate her and Robin Page’s plans in the matter of the buying of the dormitory site.

As for Doris Monroe, Marjorie had been rebuffed by chilling looks on three different occasions when she had encountered and spoken to the haughty sophomore. She now claimed the privilege of one repeatedly ignored, to ignore in return. She had not given up the idea of carrying out a certain gracious little plan she had in mind to further the popularity of her beautiful “fairy-tale princess.” Marjorie was too great of spirit to harbor resentment against Doris Monroe, simply because Doris did not like her. Instead she found herself experiencing the anxiety of one who had suddenly encountered a friend in a dangerous position.

CHAPTER II.
 
A DISQUIETING REMINDER

“Br-r-r!” Muriel made a pretense of shivering. “Did you notice how the Ice Queen scorned us? And what a noted person she had with her?” She waited until they had put a few yards between themselves and the other pair of girls before sarcastically launching the inquiries.

“Yes, I saw,” Marjorie returned composedly. “I’m sorry. I knew Leslie Cairns was living in the town of Hamilton. This is the first time I have seen her since last summer.”

“It’s the first time I’ve seen her since before she left college,” Muriel replied. “She’s homelier than ever, but that cheviot sports suit and hat she has on are dreams. What a splendid combination—the Hob-goblin and the Ice Queen!” Muriel’s private pet name for Leslie Cairns had always been the “Hob-goblin.” “Sounds like the title of a fairy tale, doesn’t it?”

“Exactly.” Marjorie nodded abstractedly. She had forgotten Muriel’s uncomplimentary name for Leslie. With the return of it to memory came her own imaginative fancy regarding Doris Monroe. Yes, Doris was truly like an enchanted princess. Now Leslie Cairns had suddenly appeared, bearing fanciful resemblance to a wicked wizard. Marjorie smiled to herself at her own absurdity of thought. Still it made a certain impression on her which time did not obliterate.

“What are you thinking about, Marvelous Manager?” Muriel gave her chum’s arm an emphatic tug. The two had kept up their swinging stride and were now nearing Silverton Hall. “Come down out of the clouds.”

“Wasn’t up in them,” Marjorie smilingly denied. “I was thinking about Miss Monroe, and——”

“And the fatal results of cultivating Leslie Cairns,” interrupted Muriel mockingly. “Don’t worry, Marjorie. Trust the icy Ice Queen to look out for her own interests. Greek has met Greek. I’ve roomed long enough with the Ice Queen to know that she always pleases herself first. This being Leslie Cairns’ motto, we may presently expect to find them on the outs.”

“I hope so.” Marjorie was not sanguine. “I’ve learned by experience, Muriel, not to under-rate Leslie Cairns’ capacity for making trouble.”

“Oh, I know she’s a star trouble maker, even if she has never succeeded in anything she tried to do to injure us,” Muriel readily admitted. “But you stood so staunchly for the right, Marjorie Dean, in all the fusses we had with her and the rest of the Sans, things simply had to turn out O. K. at the last.”

“I didn’t stand out more strongly for the right than any of the other Travelers,” Marjorie hastily corrected, her reply bordering on vexation.

“Certainly, you did, Modest Manager,” Muriel cheerfully contradicted. “I have all the proofs of the case at my tongue’s end.”

“Keep them there,” Marjorie told her with feigned displeasure.

“Oh, very well.” Muriel was all amiability. “I may think of some other sweet little thing about you later.”

Readers of the “Marjorie Dean High School Series,” which comprises four volumes, and the “Marjorie Dean College Series,” also in four volumes, are thoroughly at home with Marjorie Dean and her many friends. “Marjorie Dean, College Post Graduate,” forms the initial volume in the “Marjorie Dean Post Graduate Series.” Returned to Hamilton College as a post graduate Marjorie took up the work she had set her heart upon doing. Surrounded by a devoted circle of girls who had kept pace with her in college, Marjorie felt that her most momentous year of enterprise and accomplishment had come.

Lack of unity at Wayland Hall had distressed her not a little since her return to the campus. She had dreamed rosy dreams of a unified Hamilton which she had fondly hoped might come true that very year. Instead, Wayland Hall, the house she loved best of all the campus houses, and her own roof tree, was brimming with dissention. She was now reflecting rather dispiritedly concerning this very thing. The encounter with Leslie Cairns and Doris Monroe had brought it foremost to her mind.

“I wonder how long Miss Monroe has known Miss Cairns?” she now mused aloud.

“Long enough to know better. There you go again, worrying over that selfish iceberg,” Muriel cried impatiently. “I might beneficently warn her against the snares of the Hob-goblin, but would she be grateful? Far from it. No, no, Muriel. Never contemplate such folly.” Muriel answered her own question in a prim, horrified tone.

“I quite agree with Muriel,” Marjorie smiled faintly.

“Some of the upper class girls may tell her a few things about Leslie Cairns. They’d not forget her and the Sans in a hurry. If you had to room with her you’d lose your crush on her. She’s exasperating.”

“I can’t help admiring her. She is so beautiful,” Marjorie made frank avowal. “I always have to stop and remember that she isn’t amiable. There was one thing in particular that I noticed on the night last summer when we invited her downstairs to Miss Remson’s spread. She was truthful. She didn’t say she was too tired, or make any other excuses. She said flatly that she didn’t care to come downstairs. Again, afterward, when we were in Vera’s car and met her out walking one Sunday afternoon, we asked her to ride with us. She refused our invitation in the same scornful way. Still it was the real way she felt. A girl who wouldn’t bother to deceive others must have principle,” Marjorie earnestly advanced.

“Hum-m. That remains to be seen.” Muriel was not thus easily convinced. “But will I be the one to see? At present the Ice Queen and I are as intimate as the North and South Poles. We don’t even study at the same table.”

“Poor old Muriel. Was it lonesome?” Marjorie flung an arm across Muriel’s shoulders. They were now turning in at the flagstone walk in front of Silverton Hall.

“Yes, it was,” grumbled Muriel. “But it’s my own fault. I took that half a room to please myself. You girls ought to appreciate me and make a fuss over me because I refused to be separated from the Sanfordites.”

“I’ll call a special meeting after the Travelers go tonight and remind the Sanfordites of their duty,” Marjorie teasingly promised as they went up the steps of the Hall.

The blended harmony of violin and piano outside Robin Page’s room halted the visitors before the closed door. They had no more than willingly paused to listen when the music stopped.

“My last A string,” mourned a voice. “I’ll have to go clear to town for another. How provoking!”

Marjorie knocked three times in quick succession on the door, hers and Robin’s particular rap. There was a scurry of light feet across the floor then Robin joyfully opened the door.

“What luck!” she exulted as she did a pleased little prance around the callers. “I was coming over to Wayland Hall directly after dinner. I’ve such a lot of things to get off my chest.” She sighed. “I’m fairly stuffed with responsibility. Hello, Muriel Harding. I haven’t seen you for as much as two days. Where have you been keeping yourself? I want you for a singing number I’m going to have in our first show. We’re going to open with a revue, you know.”

“My A string just snapped,” Phyllis Moore was ruefully informing Marjorie. “So aggravating. I was going to put in two hours of practice this evening. The only store in Hamilton where I can get another string closes at five o’clock. Goodness knows when I’ll be imbued again with such a laudable desire to practice.”

“You couldn’t practice tonight if you had fifty A strings,” Marjorie told her. “The time has come to open the box, Phil.”

“Oh, lovely!” Phyllis’ charming face lighted with pleasure. “Away with practice.” She waved both arms outward with a buoyant releasing gesture.

“You’re to come over to Wayland Hall now; you and Robin. Where’s Barbara?”

“In her room, stuck with a theme. Hope she’s struggled through it by this time. If she hasn’t, I’ll make her leave it; just as though it was a finished literary triumph. I’ll go for her now.” Phil dashed out the door and down the hall to Barbara Severn’s room.

She returned in an incredibly short space of time with Barbara, the latter in outdoor attire.

“Hello, Red Bird,” greeted Muriel. “Who so gay as you?” She shook Barbara by both hands, then turned her around so as to inspect her coat and cap of a wonderful shade of deep crimson, the gorgeous hue accentuated by wide collar, cuffs and bandings of bear’s fur. “What a love of a coat and cap!”

“Isn’t it, though? I am always planning to waylay Barbara on the campus some fine dark evening and strip her of that de luxe red coat and cap.” Phil made threatening eyes at Barbara.

“I’m safe. She doesn’t quite dare risk her dignity as president of the senior class,” laughed Barbara.

Robin had already donned her wraps. It took energetic Phil not more than a minute to snatch her own smart coat of gray tweed from its accustomed hanger. She pulled a black soft Tam-o’-shanter with its huge fluffy black pom-pom down upon her crinkling yellow-brown hair at a truly artistic angle.

“Phil looks more like a wandering musician than ever in that Tam,” was Marjorie’s admiring opinion. The individuality of Phyllis’ clothes and the careless, artistic grace with which the tall, supple girl wore them were a joy to Marjorie.

Down the stairs and out of the house trooped the five friends, bent on making as good time to Wayland Hall as they could. Robin, Phil and Marjorie were anxious to have a talk before dinner about the program for the coming revue and their entertainment plans for Thanksgiving. Muriel had decided to go to town with Jerry and Leila in the car to help buy the eats for the spread. Barbara was eager to see Lucy Warner and glean from her certain biological pointers of which she stood in need. The group sped across the campus, reaching the Hall at just five o’clock.

“No mail for Muriel. What’s the matter with the population of Sanford that I don’t get any letters?” Muriel demanded severely as she turned away disappointedly from the Hall bulletin board.

“I had no idea of your vast importance in Sanford,” giggled Barbara. “You talk as though you were the mayor of the town.”

“Not yet,” grinned Muriel. “I may be the mayoress of Sanford some day—say in about a hundred years from now.” She duplicated Barbara’s giggle. “Marjorie’s the scintillating social star of Sanford.”

Marjorie said not a word as she picked several letters from the bulletin board. Her eyes were glowing like stars at the harvest of mail. There was a letter from General; another from Captain; a third in Mary Raymond’s neat vertical script, had come from far-off Colorado. There was a fourth from Constance Armitage. Fifth and last was a letter in the sprawling childish writing of Charlie Stevens. She and Charlie, the latter now grown into a tall sturdy youngster of thirteen, were regular and enthusiastic correspondents.

In the rack above her own mail she caught sight of two letters for Jerry. One of them was in Helen Trent’s familiar hand. The other—A swift blush overspread Marjorie’s cheeks as she took the two letters from the board and placed them with her own. She knew only too well whose hand had dashed the address across the envelope.

Immersed as she had been in college matters she had given her old pal, Hal Macy, scant thought since her return to Hamilton campus. Sight of his letter to Jerry gave her pause; reminded her of something which intruded itself upon her not quite agreeably. Hal had not answered the latest letter she had written him. It had really been a long while since she had heard from him.

CHAPTER III.
 
LOYAL TO NO ONE

In the dining-room at Wayland Hall that evening plenty of curious and speculative glances were cast at the round dozen of Hamilton’s staunchest children as they made merry at a special table which Miss Remson had provided for them.

From the next table to theirs the five Bertram girls exchanged occasional laughing signals and remarks with the distinguished little group of post graduates, seniors and one member of the faculty, the youngest though she happened to be. Aside from the warm friendliness of Gussie Forbes and her four chums there emanated from the other table of girls a peculiarly chilling atmosphere. It hinted of displeasure; a displeasure which stopped just this side of hostility.

“The sophs and freshies in the house can’t see us for a minute,” Jerry said to Leila in an undertone as they were awaiting the serving of the dessert. “Feel the chill. Get me?”

“Tell me nothing.” Leila cast a grim glance about the dining-room. Suddenly her grimness vanished into a characteristic flash of white teeth which always signified her utter amusement. “It is the Battle of Wayland Hall we shall be fighting before spring with a number of distinguished P. G. generals in the thick of the fray. It is the sophs who are ready now to roar at us. The freshies here will but echo the sophs’ roars.”

“Wayland Hall has been a regular hot-bed of trouble since the soph president was elected.” Jerry used the same guarded tones. “With Gus and the disappointed Ice Queen under the same roof can you wonder?”

“I cannot.” Leila’s shrug was eloquent. “I have not been so completely disgusted with a set of girls since the bad days of the Sans.”

“Bad days of the Sans?” Vera, seated at Leila’s left, had caught the Irish girl’s words. She now repeated them inquiringly. “What tales of ancient history am I hearing?”

“Ancient history that is trying to repeat itself,” Leila returned with dry sarcasm. “I have been muttering in Jeremiah’s ear that we are not favorites at the Hall.”

“It’s a case of top-lofty sophs and freshie-fresh freshmen.” Vera gave a wise nod. “The traditional meek and lowly freshie is rapidly becoming an almost extinct species.”

“So it would appear this year,” Jerry agreed with an appraising survey of the long dining-room. Her glance rested for a moment on Doris Monroe, then traveled on to the students who sat at table with her.

“There are the members of the trouble bureau,” she told Leila. “Look in the direction I’m looking and you’ll know who I mean.”

“I heard something about a trouble bureau.” Marjorie, next to Jerry on Jerry’s right, bent a laughing face forward to her room-mate. “What?”

“First time I ever head you commit a Cairns-ism. For further information about the trouble bureau, find the Ice Queen,” Jerry directed not without humor.

“Oh; I understand. But I won’t look down at her. If she happened to see us looking at her she would probably be offended, just as Gussie Forbes was when she noticed us eyeing her the first time we saw her at Baretti’s. I learned a lesson then. I don’t intend to make the same mistake again.” Marjorie spoke with the utmost good humor. She was not preaching to her chums, and they knew it.

“Merely because you’re such an old friend of mine, Bean, to confide in you doesn’t mean that I’m gossiping, I’ll say a word or two about the trouble bureau. That tall soph with the straight black hair, black moon eyes and pasty-white face is the chief disturber. She seems to be directing the Ice Queen’s campaign. Muriel says she comes to see Miss Monroe about every half hour until the ten-thirty bell puts the kibosh on her visits.”

Unlike Marjorie, Jerry could not refrain from voicing her disapproval of Doris Monroe and her group of sophomore satellites living at Wayland Hall. “The next agitator to Moon Eyes is the pudgy, red-haired soph with the mechanical voice. Their real names happen to be Miss Peyton and Miss Carter, but Muriel and I have made a few changes,” Jerry declared with a whole-hearted grin. “Ahem! We call the pair the Prime Minister and the Phonograph. So true to life! What?”

Marjorie, Leila and Vera could not help laughing at the names Jerry and Muriel had waggishly applied to the two sophs. Miss Carter’s speech had a habit of clicking itself from her lips with the mechanical precision of a phonograph. She had a wooden manner of carriage and walk which further added to the impression she gave of something mechanical. As for the name Muriel had picked for moon-eyed Miss Peyton, Muriel herself probably best understood thus far its fitness as applied to the tall, austere looking young woman.

“The traditions of Hamilton say nothing about the naming habit.” Leila shot a playful glance at Jerry.

“Er-r—well, it’s remembering the stranger within our gate in a kind of way,” Jerry defended. “Now that Muriel and I have named ’em specially we can remember ’em so much the better.”

“Such ignoble sentiments from a Hamilton P. G.! I am shocked!” Vera’s small hands went up in simulated displeasure.

“You’ll get over the shock if you don’t stop to think about it,” Jerry assured her. “You may even learn to admire the Harding-Macy classification.”

“It’s certainly time the Travelers got together,” Leila said, now more than half serious in her observation. “We must protect the Hall.”

“I am with you in that, Leila,” Marjorie observed, the light of sudden, unalterable purpose flaring strongly in her eyes. “We have Miss Remson as well as the girls here to think of. We’ve been through a siege of a house divided against itself once here. We must somehow not let that calamity overtake the Hall again.”

“How are we going to stop it, Marvelous Manager, with Gentleman Gus and the Ice Queen all ready to challenge each other to a duel?” quizzed Jerry. “I don’t say it can’t be done. I have great faith in you and your works, Bean.” She beamed patronizingly. “I merely ask you: How is it going to be done?”

“I wish I knew,” Marjorie laughingly confessed. “The Travelers will have to find a way to teach our freshies and sophs here to live up to the Hymn of Hamilton. That means we’ll have to teach them without letting them know they are being taught.”

Jerry looked impishly impressed. “What a simple pleasant task!” she exclaimed with pretended enthusiasm. “I should say we’d better cut out dessert, go right upstairs and plan for it. What’s dessert? Nothing but fresh cocoanut layer-cake and coffee gelatine slathered with whipped cream. Who cares for any such trifles?” Jerry waved an airy hand. She made no move to leave her chair, however.

“Only you. The rest of us have no longing for sweet stuff. But we are so kind as to keep you company while you eat,” Leila made bland assurance.

When the dessert was served the Irish girl deftly abstracted Jerry’s portion of cake and gelatine from under Jerry’s eyes and before the waitress had more than placed the dishes on the table. Up the line went the cake and gelatine until they reached Phil, who sat at the head of the table. Phil welcomed them with effusion and grew tantalizing. She gave a dozen flimsy reasons supposed to justify her claim to it. The table rang with laughter so spontaneous and good-natured more than one of the freshmen at the Hall felt a secret sympathy spring up within for the girls whom they had heard characterized by Doris Monroe’s most ardent supporters as “meddlers and hypocrites” and of having shown marked favoritism.

“If we were to make half the noise they are making Miss Remson would call us to account for it,” sourly observed Julia Peyton to Clara Carter. “I’ve spoken to her several times about the racket that goes on every evening in Miss Forbes’ room and in that Miss Dean’s room, too. It’s been worse since Miss Harding came to the Hall.”

“I know it,” Miss Carter nodded an eager red head. “Doris says she simply won’t allow Miss Harding to carry on in her room the way she does when she’s with her own crowd. She’s generally to be found on the campus with some of them, screaming and laughing. Doris met her and Miss Dean when she was with that awfully rich Miss Cairns this very afternoon. She said she felt so mortified at being obliged to speak to Miss Harding. She doesn’t speak to Miss Dean at all. She told me she had good reasons for ignoring her, but she preferred not to give them.”

“Humph.” Julia cast a jealous glance at her companion as the two sophomores rose to leave the table. Each girl was jealous of the condescending friendship which Doris Monroe had chosen to give her companion. She felt that she stood a trifle closer to Doris than the other.

Doris was fully aware of this state of affairs. When she had recovered from the sweetness of her first triumph at being “rushed” she made up her mind not to allow her soph and freshie admirers to fail in allegiance to her banner. She soon learned that her selfish air of indifference was one of her greatest assets. It added individuality to her beauty. It impressed her worshippers with a high idea of the value of her acquaintance.

She had inherited this trait of indifference from her mother, whose counterpart she was. She had, as Marjorie suspected, a strong inclination to honesty, one of her father’s finest traits. Thus she could not have pretended an indifference she did not feel. Since it was in her soul to be this she accepted the benefits she received from it with secret satisfaction. She was privately glad that she had no desire to be impulsive and readily responsive.

“I heard that the Miss Cairns you mentioned was expelled from Hamilton College,” Julia said disagreeably. She was desirous of over-topping Clara’s boastful reference to “Doris” and the intimacy it implied.

“Who told you?” Clara’s tone was challenging.

“I’ll not say who. I heard it, and it came to me directly from someone who knew,” Julia made mysterious response.

“I—I—haven’t heard any such story as that. I don’t believe it’s true. I’ll ask Doris. She’ll tell me,” Clara ended, tossing her flame-colored head.

“You’re very foolish to think of asking Doris,” disapproved Julia, her shaggy black brows drawing together. “She’ll set you down as impertinent. Even if she should know she wouldn’t tell you.” She gave a short, sarcastic laugh.

“I’m not afraid to ask her,” Clara doggedly persisted. “You may be, but I’m not.”

This was the beginning of an angry discussion between the two sophomores which lasted all the way upstairs and for several minutes after the door of their room was slammed behind them by Clara. So vigorously did she slam it that the sharp sound reached the bevy of Travelers as they came trooping gaily upstairs. Robin was singing softly for them an old plantation song: “Get you ready there’s a meetin’ here tonight,” and Phil was patting her hands in time to it.

“Bing, bang; who fired the first shot?” exclaimed Muriel.

“It did sound almost like a shot, didn’t it? I haven’t heard such a splendid imitation of banging a door since the Sans used to vent their outraged feelings on the doors,” chuckled Vera.

“That may have been the first shot fired in the Battle of Wayland Hall,” Jerry gigglingly surmised to Leila.

“Then it was wasted on us,” laughed Leila. “It will take more than the banging of a few doors to rouse our ire to the point of battle. Though make no mistake: ‘The air is full of knives,’ as we say in Ireland.”

In the room occupied by Clara Carter and Julia Peyton the air was indeed full of verbal knives. Both had voted for Doris Monroe for president of the sophomore class. Both had pledged themselves, with certain other girls at the Hall, to “boost” Doris and “down” Augusta Forbes. Now they were squabbling fiercely over the lovely, indifferent object of their girl devotion. In their jealous anger with each other they had blindly overlooked the old saying: “In union there is strength.”

CHAPTER IV.
 
TESTING TWO TRAVELERS

“Remember, friends and fellow Travelers, this is a serious occasion.” Ronny, as president of the original Five Travelers, stood facing her companions who had disposed themselves four in a row on Jerry’s couch-bed and on chairs in alignment with the couch.

“It’s not very serious any of us are looking, nor our worthy president, either,” Leila declared, throwing Ronny a twinkling glance.

“Never judge by appearances—so very reckless, don’t you know,” Ronny rebuked, her charming face full of mischief.

“On with the meeting. No stops allowed for repartee. We’ve a lot to do, and a spread to eat up afterward,” Jerry announced in her most judicial tones.

“Thank you for your delicate reminder that time is flying, Jeremiah.” Ronny made Jerry a deep bow, meant to convey her humble gratitude. “As I was about to say when I was interrupted”—Ronny stared hard at Leila—“we are to pass upon the names written on slips in this box.” She held up a small square box of ornamental brass.

During their initial railway journey to Hamilton College more than four years previous the quintette of Sanford chums had helped while away the long hours on the train by banding themselves into a private, informal club which they named the Five Travelers’ Club. They had found interest in looking upon themselves as five travelers about to explore the unknown country of College.

The little association had flourished and been a comfort to them during their freshman year. Every now and then, as the journey through the country of college continued they had added a member to the group. When Commencement and the end of their proscribed course came the still informal club had become the Nineteen Travelers.

It had become the earnest desire of the Nineteen Travelers to perpetuate the club as a sorority. After much discussion it had been decided to leave it as a parting gift to nineteen seniors. Due to the multiplicity of duties which the original Nineteen Travelers had pledged themselves to perform, the organization of the new sorority was left, unfortunately, until the last minute. By that time several new-fledged seniors, eligible to membership, had departed for their homes.

It was Ronny who had then proposed that each Traveler should write on a slip of paper her choice of senior to succeed her. The slips were to be placed in a box, without having been examined, and the box placed in Miss Remson’s care until the return the next fall of the post graduate Travelers to Hamilton College. To them would be intrusted the forming of the new sorority.

“I feel confident,” Ronny continued, “that the seniors whose names are in this box are the very girls we most wish to carry on our club. Still, in the event that any one of you may have an objection to a name as read out by me, I will count ten slowly after the reading of each name. Anyone who may make objection must say ‘no’ within the count, and afterward frankly state her reason for so doing.”

With this preamble Ronny put a hand in the box, drew from it a slip and solemnly read out: “Phyllis Moore.” The laughing gleam in her gray eyes did not accord with her solemn face. “One, two——” she began.

A chorus of laughter drowned her voice, mingled with cries of: “No; no, indeed! I object.”

“Mercy on us!” Up went Ronny’s hands. “Such strenuous objections! Sh-h-h. Be calm and state our objections, one at a time.”

“We can’t decide as to her qualifications for membership until she has been put to the test,” boldly demanded Lillian Wenderblatt.

“Very well,” Ronny agreed with the utmost amiability.

“Poor me.” Phil groaned audibly.

“I would suggest that action be suspended on the candidate to be tested until the other names have been passed upon. In the event that there may be other candidates for the test they may then be put to the ordeal together.” Marjorie made this sly proviso, and with apparent innocence.

“Other candidates!” exclaimed Barbara Severn. “I know only one other besides Phil. Poor me!”

“Barbara Severn.” Ronny promptly read out her name. Another burst of vigorous, laughing “Noes” ascended. Barbara was also condemned to the test.

During the Nineteen Travelers’ senior year at Hamilton they had more than once invited Phil and Barbara to become members of the club. Both had refused the invitation, preferring to receive their election as a parting gift from their elder sisters. They had been as invaluable to the Travelers, however, as though they had been members. Now their comrades proposed to show appreciation in their own peculiar fashion. None of the seventeen other names which Ronny read out for the august consideration of the Travelers were challenged.

“I am sure you will be pleased to hear that Miss Mason and Jer—Miss Macy will conduct the test,” Ronny purred to the hapless candidates.

“That’s right, half call me Jeremiah. Everyone’s only about half respectful to me,” grumbled Jerry.

“Oh, we’re de-lighted,” Barbara and Phil together satirically responded.

“So glad. As all appear to be pleased let the test begin,” Ronny smiled encouragingly on the candidates.

“Ahem-m! Candidates rise and come forward. Stand there; exactly in line,” Jerry dictated grandly. “You will now listen to Miss Mason while she explains to you the nature of the first test.”

Vera came smilingly toward the two girls. “Here is a penny for each of you,” she said generously. “You are not to spend it for candy. No, no.” She shook a forbidding finger at them. “You are to get down on the floor and each shove your penny to the door and”—she beamed beneficently on her victims—“with your nose.”

“Woof-f!” Phil made a despairing gesture.

“I can never do it,” giggled Barbara, “but I’ll try.”

“We are waiting.” Vera sweetly indicated the place on the rug on which the unlucky candidates were to prostrate themselves.

Phil was first to obey. Barbara paused to watch her and learn the way such a feat was to be performed. It took Phil not more than a minute to discover that creeping as a means of locomotion would not aid her penny’s progress to the door. She was obliged to lie flat to the floor, face downward, and wriggle very slowly toward the goal, aiming constant dabs at the penny with her nose.

Her gallant progress in spite of odds so entertained Barbara she had to be reminded of her part in the test. She proved not nearly as skillful as Phil in the art of penny-shoving. Meanwhile the room rang with laughter.

“The candidates will now be allowed a breathing spell while I consult with my valued assistant and prepare the next degree,” was Jerry’s gracious announcement after Phil had triumphantly pushed her penny the required distance and Barbara had shoved hers over half way to the door.

The next degree appeared in the form of two rows of potatoes, placed at short distances apart. At one end of each row was a basket. Jerry handed Phil and Barbara each a teaspoon and assigned them to a potato row. “Start at this end. Pick up the potatoes on your teaspoon and carry them to the basket,” was her next bland instruction.

“That sounds easy,” sighed Barbara. “Oh, my nose,” she tenderly rubbed it.

To balance a good-sized potato on a teaspoon and carry it across a room is a feat which requires practice. Phyllis and Barbara were novices at it. They toiled patiently at the ridiculous task while the Travelers had a hilarious time at their expense. Before either had succeeded in placing more than two or three potatoes in their baskets Vera called them off the job.

“We’ll have to take your will for the deed,” she told them. “Your sense of balance seems to be sadly lacking. Don’t be discouraged. Both of you have splendid useful noses even if your potato carrying was wobbly. You’ve done nobly. Now we are going to give you a feed. I hope you won’t mind being blindfolded for a little while. It’s quite necessary.

“Nothing could please us more,” Phil assured extravagantly.

“Whoever heard of an initiation without the candidates were blindfolded? Go as far as you like.” Barbara was equally gracious.

Jerry proceeded to blindfold the two in her business-like way. Next she motioned to Vera, who brought forward two bungalow aprons. She and Vera politely assisted Phil and Barbara into the aprons. The pair were then led to chairs and ordered to be seated.

From the top shelf of her dress closet Jerry took a square pasteboard box. Opened, two immense, shining cream puffs were revealed. Laughter greeted the sight of them. The other Travelers recognized the puffs as having come from a certain bakery in the town of Hamilton where the size of the dainty and its extra-generous cream filling had popularized it among the Hamilton College girls.

“Here, Phyllis Marie Moore; you can’t say I never treated you. In the absence of plates, hold out both hands.” Jerry lifted one of the huge puffs from the box and carefully set it in Phil’s obediently outstretched hands. She then went through the same performance with Barbara as the recipient. “Eat them nicely,” she admonished with wicked significance.

“Eat them nicely,” mimicked Barbara. “I can’t eat a cream puff nicely when I can see every bite I take of it. Blindfolded—good night!”

“They’re awfully good anyway,” consoled Phil. She held the puff in one hand and went cautiously over the humps and bumps of the big pastry shell. She boldly attacked a corner which promised not to let out too copiously the fairly thin cream filling. She did very well until she had eaten away enough of the shell to court disaster. It would have been hard enough to eat the puff daintily had she been able to see it. Minus sight and a plate or paper napkin on which to place it she soon managed to smear her face, hands and apron liberally with cream. She ate away desperately but there appeared to be twice as much filling as should have been.

Barbara did far worse at puff eating than Phyllis. Her frantic efforts to keep the cream within the bounds of its crisp brown shell sent her companions into shrieks of laughter. Worse still for them, Jerry had decreed that they could not wipe either hands or faces until she gave the word.

In the midst of the fun Marjorie obeyed a sudden impulse to leave the room and stand in the hall outside the door for a moment. She slipped away unnoticed, anxious to ascertain how plainly the laughter and talk of her companies sounded from outside. She and Jerry had hung three heavy portieres which Miss Remson had given them before the door leading into the hall and before the doors of the two dress closets. The manager had assured her that the portieres would serve to a great extent to deaden sounds from within the room.

She smiled her relieved satisfaction after she had listened intently for three or four minutes. She could hear only faintly the sounds of conversation mingled with laughter. She was of the opinion that such sounds would not be disturbing to any student on the same floor.

“Watchman, tell us of the night,” hailed Jerry as Marjorie again stepped into the room. “I know what you’ve been doing. You’ve been listening to how noisy we are.”

“Right-o, Jeremiah. And we haven’t been disgracefully noisy, after all,” Marjorie gaily assured. “While the girls were laughing loudest at Barbara and Phil I stole out of here into the hall. I wanted to find out, if I could, just how noisy we were. That heavy curtain we hung over the door shuts the sound in beautifully. You can only hear it faintly from the hall.”

“Good work, Bean; good work.” Jerry patted Marjorie on the back. “We’ve two more stunts to put Phil and Barbara through yet and the crowd is getting hilariouser and hilariouser. Listen to them now.”

A fresh gale of mirth testified to the truth of Jerry’s remarks. It assaulted Marjorie’s critical ears with almost dismaying force. Reminded of what she had just proven to her own satisfaction she grew reassured. Since that day, early in the fall, when Doris Monroe had reported the joyful little welcome party in Gussie Forbes’ room to Miss Remson as disturbing to her peace Marjorie and Jerry had been expecting the same dire fate would overtake them. Their room was the Travelers’ headquarters as well as a favorite haunt of the five Bertram girls. “It’s our positive good fortune that we escaped thus far,” Marjorie had more than once told Jerry.

In itself to have been reported to Miss Remson as disturbers would not have troubled Marjorie and Jerry. Understanding between them and the brisk little manager of the Hall was complete. It was their standing as post graduates, their college honor which they prided themselves upon. As post graduates they would be first to be weighed in the balance. They ardently desired not to be found wanting even in small things.

What Marjorie had not known when she returned to Room 15 after her brief moment of listening in the hall was that she had been observed. Across the hall from Room 15 two interested sophomores had kept diligent watch since the Travelers had come upstairs from dinner. With their own door a few stealthy inches ajar they had heard, or imagined they heard, what they had been longing to hear—noise enough from “those tiresome, interfering P.G.’s” to warrant prompt action on their part.

CHAPTER V.
 
A LEADING QUESTION

Action came while Phil and Barbara were engaged in removing at least a third of the creamy contents of the puffs from faces, hands, necks and even hair. They “cleaned up” amidst the laughter and gay raillery of their friends.

“How much more must we endure?” demanded Barbara as she dried her cleansed features with a Turkish towel and began lightly powdering them at the mirror.

“Oh, not so much,” tantalized Jerry. “There are a few more little stunts that——” Two imperative raps on the door sent Jerry hurrying to it. She pushed the portiere to one side; swung open the door to confront the tall, squarely-built sophomore whom she had nicknamed the Prime Minister.

“Good evening,” she said in level tones. Her keen eyes were missing nothing. Her mind leaped at once to the nature of the other girl’s intrusion, for such it was.

“Good evening.” Her salutation was returned with haughty aggression. In fact every line of the sophomore’s broad face and stiff, unyielding figure spelled aggression. Her peculiarly round black eyes, blacker in contrast to the unhealthy white of her skin, resentfully searched Jerry up and down.

“I wish to speak to Miss Dean at once,” she demanded. “I know she is here.” She eyed Jerry belligerently, as though to forestall a denial on her part.

“Of course she is here. We are entertaining our friends.” Jerry’s matter-of-fact reply brought a dull flush to Miss Peyton’s pale cheeks. “Will you come in?” The concise invitation had a certain restraining effect upon the frowning caller.

“No, I will not,” she refused, her own inflexion rude. “Ask Miss Dean to come to the door. I wish to speak to her, and to you.”

“Very well.” Jerry appeared non-committal. “Just a moment.” She turned away from the door and beckoned to Marjorie.

Marjorie left Barbara and Phil, whom she had been assisting in the removal of the sticky traces of the puff test, and walked quickly to the door. In that brief second on the way to it a flash of dismay visited her. It drove from her eyes the light of laughter occasioned by Phil’s and Barbara’s complaining nonsense as they scrubbed faces and hands.

“What is it, Jerry?” she asked as she reached her room-mate.

Jerry opened the door wider and made room for Marjorie in the doorway beside her. “Miss Peyton has something she wishes to say to us.” Jerry’s round face was enigmatic. Marjorie had but to glance at it to read there what others might not.

Within the room the buzz of conversation had lessened to a mere murmur. Muriel had been entertaining her chums with a flow of her funny nonsense. Even she had run down suddenly, seized by the same surmise which had occurred to her companions. Too courteous to stare boldly toward the door, canny conjecture as to the caller’s errand temporarily halted the will to talk.

“Good evening, Miss Peyton.” Marjorie’s straight glance into the soph’s smouldering eyes was courteously inquiring. Ordinarily she might have followed the greeting with a pleasantry. What she read in Julia Peyton’s face held her silent; waiting.

“I have come to speak to you and Miss Macy about the noise you have been making this evening,” blurted the sophomore, dropping all pretense of courtesy. “It is not only tonight I speak of. Almost every other night we have been annoyed by the noise in your room. It makes study impossible. We have endured it without complaining, but we have had every reason for reporting it. Tonight you and your friends have been more annoying than usual. I decided the time had come to let you know it.”

Before she could say more Marjorie broke in evenly with: “It is true that there is a larger party of girls than usual in our room tonight. We have been conducting an informal meeting of a club of which we are members. We spoke to Miss Remson beforehand, asking permission to hold the meeting in our room. We——”

“Oh, Miss Remson!” was the contemptuous exclamation. “She cannot be depended upon for fairness. We understand where her sympathies lie. We have spoken to her——” The sophomore stopped abruptly, caught in a contradiction of her own previous statement of not having complained.

“Pardon me. I understood you to say that you had not complained.” Jerry could not resist a lightning opportunity to discomfit the other girl.

“I should have said that we had not—that we—that we had not reported you to President Matthews,” amended Miss Peyton, glancing angrily at Jerry. Aggressive from the start she was fast losing her temper.

“I cannot allow you to accuse Miss Remson of unfairness without offering my strongest defense in her behalf.” Righteous indignation lent sternness to Marjorie’s clear tones. “She is never unfair. She is always dependable. Since you have said that you reported us to her, I must believe you. She has not mentioned the matter to us. That means she does not consider us at fault.”

“Oh, certainly she doesn’t,” was the sarcastic retort accompanied by a significant shrug of the square shoulders. “That is precisely the trouble.”

“Please allow me to finish what I had begun to say to you.” Marjorie made a dignified little gesture. “On the day when Miss Monroe reported Miss Forbes and a few of us who were in her room welcoming her back to college, we talked things over with Miss Remson. Since then we have been more careful not to give offense to other students at the Hall than at any time during our past four years at Hamilton. Miss Remson gave us heavy portieres to hang before the doors when we expected to entertain a number of girls. These deaden the sound. You can see for yourself how heavy and closely-woven this one is.” Marjorie took hold of a fold of the portiere. “I purposely went into the hall tonight and closed the door after me to find out if we were too noisy. I was surprised at the small amount of noise that came from our room.”

“I am surprised to hear such statements from a post graduate.” Julia Peyton gave a discomfited sarcastic laugh. “Frankly, Miss Dean, I have been so disappointed in you. When first I came to Hamilton I had the greatest respect for you. I regret that I should have been obliged to change that opinion.” Julia believed she had said something extremely telling. “Yes; and I do not approve of the way your post graduate friends have tried to run Wayland Hall. It surely does not add to Miss Langly’s credit as a member of the faculty,” she ended in malicious triumph. She was inwardly furious at Marjorie’s and Jerry’s quiet but determined defense of their own conduct.

“Your harsh opinion of our friends is not justified.” Marjorie’s curt proud tones contained censure. “Let me advise you to be careful and not repeat such opinions on the campus. Our friends would not suffer as a result. They are known to be true to the traditions of Hamilton. You would merely succeed in creating unpleasantness for yourself.”

“I don’t care for your advice.” Miss Peyton blazed into sudden wrath. “You are only trying to frighten me into not reporting you and your friends. You meant yourself, too, but you were clever enough not to include yourself in your remarks. I shall report the whole affair to President Matthews; not later than tomorrow morning.” She whirled angrily; started across the hall.

“Wait a minute.” Something in Jerry’s tone arrested the miffed soph’s progress. “I’d like to ask you a question.”

“Well?” Miss Peyton put untold frost into the interrogation.

“Why”—Jerry paused—“if you and your room-mate were so greatly disturbed by our noise, did you not close your door? That would have at least helped considerably to shut out the noise.”

“Our door was—” began the soph furiously.

“Partly open,” supplied Jerry. “I am quite sure it was,” she continued sweetly, “because I happened to go into the hall and saw for myself.”

CHAPTER VI.
 
LITTLE HOPE FOR P. G.’S

“Stung, and by the truth!” Jerry gave an exultant skip into their room behind Marjorie and hastily closed the door. Miss Peyton, confronted by unassailable truth, had no defense ready. She glared wrathfully at Jerry and Marjorie and hurriedly disappeared into her room.

“We can guess what it’s all about,” greeted Muriel Harding. “We ought to be shocked and amazed, Marvelous Manager, at you for fussing. We might expect it of Jeremiah.”

“You might; you bet you might. I’d have done all the fussing this time if Marjorie hadn’t begun answering that trouble hunter first. Believe me Leila, the first attack in the Battle of Wayland Hall was made right at our door. I’m happy to announce that the enemy was sent fleeing across the hall with one good hot shot fired by the Travelers’ friend, J. J. G. Macy. I’m the one.” Jerry proudly thumped her chest.

“Could you hear what we were saying?” Marjorie glanced interestedly about the half circle of girls, eagerly formed around her. “I know you would try not to listen.”

“We could hear only a word now and then,” Vera made haste to answer. “Of course it was a complaint about us. What is the matter with these sophs? They weren’t so obstreperous last year as freshies?”

“I took Miss Peyton to the freshman hop last year,” said Lillian Wenderblatt. “As a Traveler in the midst of Travelers I may say she was very ungracious to me. I accepted her rudeness as not having been intentional; laid it to her natural manner. Since I’ve heard her rated as the rudest student on the campus.”

“Gussie Forbes says that the freshies who made life hard for her and her pals last year are the sophs who are trying to do it again this year,” said Phyllis Moore.

“Gussie is a wise child. And with Muriel’s celebrated Ice Queen to add to the snarl what hope is there for a few poor old P. G. ladies who had hoped to live out their days in peace on the campus? Oh, wurra, wurra!” Leila crossed her hands over her breast, clutched her shoulders with her fingers, thrust out her chin and rocked herself to and fro with the appearance of a mourning old woman.

“What a dandy old woman you make, Leila. I’m going to cast you for an old hag part in a melodrama, if I can find a good one. The campus is howling for a truly lurid one with outlaws, an abducted child, a lost heiress, an old hag and various other nice pleasant little characters.” Robin was always on the lookout for features. “We can ask three dollars a seat for a zipping old ‘dramer’ and crowd the gym.”

“It’s a good deal more pleasant to talk of shows than fusses,” Marjorie declared, smiling at Robin’s latest ambition. Glancing up at the wall clock she gave a quick exclamation. “Jerry,” she cried, “we’ll have to trot out the spread instanter!”

“Don’t I know it. I’ve already begun.” Jerry made a dive toward her closet.

“What about those two stunts for the candidates?” Lucy Warner caught Jerry by an arm.

“Why, Luciferous, how you do like to see people get into trouble, don’t you?” grinned Jerry.

Lucy’s grave, studious face relaxed into the wide, utterly pleased smile which Muriel and Jerry both enjoyed calling to it. She broke into the funny little half giggle, half gurgle which was always productive of laughter in others.

“The idea, Luciferous, of your calling attention to poor Barbara and me after all we’ve suffered!” Phil turned reproachful blue eyes on Lucy.

“Oh, I’m not so mean as you think me,” Lucy’s odd greenish eyes flashed warm lights of fun. “It was a case of either stunts or eats. It’s going to be eats, so good night stunts.”

“‘Good night stunts,’” repeated Muriel. “You never learned them words from Prexy Matthews, Luciferous.”

“I should hope not,” chuckled Lucy. “All the slang I know I learned from you and Jeremiah. Kindly remember that.”

“I wish to forget it immediately,” Muriel looked askance at the accusation.

With the hands of the clock pointing to ten minutes to ten Marjorie and Jerry, with Leila’s and Vera’s help rushed the eatables for the spread to the center table. Leila had furnished a box of Irish sweet crackers and a case of imported ginger ale. The ginger ale had arrived only the day before from across the ocean. Sweet pickles, stuffed olives, stuffed dates, salted almonds and small fancy cakes comprised the lay-out. There had been no time to make sandwiches.

Supplied with paper napkins and paper plates the guests helped themselves to the spread. They formed in an irregular group on each side of Jerry’s couch which held its usual four of their number. Marjorie and Jerry seated themselves on the floor in front of the couch bed. Unintentionally they formed the center of the group.

“At last you can tell us what was said at the door,” sighed Robin. “It isn’t curious to want to know, since we are concerned in it, too.”

“I wish you to know,” Marjorie reflectively bit into a maccaroon. “I’ll try to repeat as exactly as I can what was said. Then you’ll understand the situation better.” She recounted the conversation which had taken place at the door between herself and Miss Peyton.

“Report us to Prexy; the idea!” scoffed Lillian Wenderblatt. “She is an ambitious trouble hunter. She’ll find plenty of troubles if she carries any such tale to him.”

“I should say as much!” was Vera’s indignant cry. “Imagine a soph reporting P. G.’s and double P. G.’s and faculty and the P. G. daughter of Professor Wenderblatt! Not to mention Prexy’s own indispensible private secretary! And for what? No vestige of a reason.”

“If she does report us, Prexy’s own indispensible private secretary will take action,” threatened Lucy. “I’d be the first person the president would ask about it. If Miss Peyton went to see him in person I’d hear of it from him afterward; I’m sure. If she wrote him, I’d see the letter and take the answer he dictated. I’d ask him if I might tell you girls about it, too.” The light of devotion shone strongly in Lucy’s face.

“Who’s Prexy? We’re not in awe of him with our Luciferous on the job,” was Ronny’s confident declaration. “Long may she flourish.” She held up her glass of ginger ale. The others followed her example, careful, however, to “Drink her down” with repressed enthusiasm.

“I ought to be ashamed to face my classes tomorrow with the sword of Miss Peyton’s disapproval hanging over my head,” Kathie remarked in the pleasant lull that followed the drinking of the toast to Lucy.

“But are you?” quizzed Muriel. “I’m afraid from your tone that you aren’t.”

“Your fears are well grounded,” laughed Kathie. “The sophs and freshies at the Hall, judging from accounts, seem to be positively childish,” she continued in a more serious way. “They’re not snobs as the Sans were. There’s some hope for them. I’ll venture to say that before next June Marvelous Manager will have managed them.” Her prediction was one of confident affection.

“Such a foolish name; and you will say it,” scolded Marjorie and not quite in jest. “A fine manager I am. I can’t even manage my own affairs. I can’t decide whether to go home for Thanksgiving, or stay here,” she added in self-derision.

“One thing we must decide before we separate,” Ronny said with energy. “Where shall we meet tomorrow night? Remember we shall be twenty-nine strong. We can’t hold the meeting in one of our rooms. We must have plenty of space for our new Travelers. The living room down stairs isn’t private enough. Has anyone a really brilliant suggestion. No other kind is desired. Save your breath.”

“I have. Hold the meeting in our library,” proposed Lillian Wenderblatt. “I’ll put a sign on the library door before dinner tomorrow night: ‘Professor Wenderblatt: Keep Out,’ and lead Father to the door to look at it. Then he won’t bolt into the room with maybe two or three other professors in the middle of our meeting.”

Lillian’s proposal was received with approbation and accepted with alacrity. Leila, Vera, Robin and Lillian were chosen to notify the fortunate seniors of the honor in store for them. The rest of the details of the meeting were quickly arranged. Ten-thirty was not far off.

“Don’t imagine for a minute that you have seen the last of your initiation,” Jerry informed Phil and Barbara, a threatening gleam in her eye. “There are still those two degrees, you know.”

“Oh, forget them. We shall,” Phil made untroubled return.

“You may forget, but I—nevv-vur.” Jerry struck an attitude.

“Nor I.” Muriel dramatically tapped her chest and glared at Phil. “’Sdeath to all quitters,” she hissed.

“Oh, glorious for my melodrama!” admired Robin. “You and Jeremiah shall be the villains.”

“I choose to be the principal, double-dyed scoundrel of the show,” stipulated Muriel, “or else I’ll refuse to see your play. I spurn anything and everything but complete villainy.”

“Give me a better part than Muriel or I won’t act,” balked Jerry.

“I’m going to fly before any more actors go on a strike,” Robin raised a protesting hand. “I must look out for Page and Dean’s melodramer.”

“Only birds, insects, aviators and ‘sich’ fly,” criticized Phil. “I simply must get back at you for not giving me a cousinly warning of what was in store for me tonight.”

“Seniors, P. G.’s and faculty will add to the flying classification or lose what shreds of reputation for integrity they have left,” laughed Kathie.

“An added word of warning:—Hotfoot it lightly.” Jerry’s forceful if inelegant injunction sent the initiation party down the hall dutifully smothering their easily summoned mirth. Jerry accompanied the party to the head of the stairs. She returned to the room, keeping an alert watch as she walked on a certain door across the hall. This time she noted with satisfaction that it was tightly closed.

CHAPTER VII.
 
JERRY SPEAKS HER MIND

“The ten-thirty rule will have to chase itself merrily around the campus,” Jerry made airy disposition of that time-honored regulation as she entered the room which Marjorie was already beginning to set to rights. With her usual energy the stout girl gathered up the glasses, tucking them one inside another and setting them in a compact row at one end of the study table.

“I agree with you, Jeremiah. I have letters to read that must be read, ten-thirty rule or no.” Marjorie whisked an armful of crumpled paper napkins and empty paper plates into the waste basket. “There;” she cleared the table of crumbs; “that’ll do for tonight. Thank goodness, all the eats were eaten.”

“I can count on my fingers the times we’ve defied old ten-thirty,” Jerry declared as she reached in the table drawer for her two letters.

“Ten times in four years,” Marjorie commented. “That’s a good record.”

“True, Bean, true. When we stop to consider the past—how wonderful we are!” Jerry simpered self-appreciatively at Marjorie as she sat down under the drop light with her letters.

“How can I help but believe it when you say it like that?” rallied Marjorie. “Anyway, you’re a gem, Jeremiah. I was never more agreeably surprised than when you turned the tables on Miss Peyton tonight. I hadn’t noticed that their door stood open. But you had, smart child. I had no idea you’d been out in the hall on a tour of discovery.”

“I went directly after you were out there. I had a hunch that the Ice Queen would start something. So she did—through those two geese. They had that room last year and didn’t appear to mind our occasional soirees. But there’s still another and a chief disturber—Leslie Cairns. She’s back of the Ice Queen.”

“I think so, too,” Marjorie admitted with reluctance. “I have seen them together several times. Leslie Cairns has other friends on the campus, too. Muriel and I saw her and Miss Monroe coming out of Craig Hall this afternoon.”

“You did?” Jerry showed surprise. “I’ll investigate that. I may find out something interesting. Miss Morris, that nice senior you’ve heard me speak of, who came to the campus last fall from Vassar, says there are only seniors and juniors at Craig Hall this year. Perhaps it was the Ice Queen’s friends she and Leslie Cairns were calling upon.”

“That may be,” Marjorie agreed. “I wonder if Miss Monroe likes Leslie Cairns? Perhaps she cares more about cars and expensive clothes and spending money than anything else. We don’t know her, so we can’t even guess what sort of girl she is at heart.”

“I know what will happen to her if she puts any dependence in Leslie Cairns,” Jerry said grimly. “Don’t waste your sympathy on her, Marjorie. She isn’t worthy of it.”

“I don’t know why I feel so sorry about her, but I do,” Marjorie confessed. “Whenever I see that beautiful face of hers I forget she’s been so ungracious to us. She’s not a namby-pamby kind of pretty girl. She has a high, royal kind of beauty. I’ve not given her up yet, Jeremiah. I’m going to try popularity for her against Leslie Cairns’ money. I’m going to put her in the first show we have. I’ll have Robin ask her. I’ll stay in the background for awhile.”

“Nil desperandum,” Jerry encouraged with an indulgent grin. “Mignon La Salle reformed just to please Marvelous Manager. Why not others? Besides there’s always the pleasant possibility that the Hob-goblin and the Ice Queen may squabble and part.”

“So Muriel says. I mean about those two girls disagreeing. You may make fun of me all you please, Jerry. Just the same if we could win Miss Monroe over to our side it would gradually put everything straight here at the Hall. If Miss Monroe became our friend, she would probably become friends with the Bertram five. She’s friends already with the other sophs and freshies here. Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other, you know. Leslie Cairns’ friendship cannot be beneficial to her. I am sure of that. Yet to warn her against Miss Cairns would be contemptible. Excuse me, Jeremiah, for keeping you from your letters!” Marjorie exclaimed in sudden contrition. “It’ll be midnight before I’ve read all these.” She flourished the handful of letters before Jerry’s eyes.

“Go to it, or it may be morning. Why waste precious time flaunting your letters in my face? Why should your five to my two make you vainglorious?”

“Who’s vainglorious?” Marjorie made a half threatening move up from her chair. She dropped back again, laughing, as Jerry nimbly put the length of the table between them.

“Lots of people are vainglorious.” Jerry wisely grew vague. “Don’t bother me, Bean. I hope to read my letters in peace and quiet. Yes?”

“So do I,” emphasized Marjorie.

The chums exchanged good-humored smiles, born of perfect understanding and settled down to the patiently deferred reading of their letters.

Jerry read Helen’s letter first. She knew it would be long and absorbing. Hal’s would be his usual brief note. It was his weekly offering. Long since Jerry had made him promise to write once a week and had pledged herself to do the same by him. A strong devotion lived between brother and sister which had deepened year by year. Hal did not pretend to understand Jerry from the standpoint of girlhood. To him she was a good comrade; “the squarest kid going.” Jerry was of the private belief that she knew Hal better than he knew himself.

Her one sorrowful concern in life was the knowledge that Marjorie “couldn’t see old Hal for a minute.” She would have tried to further Hal’s unflourishing cause with Marjorie, but there seemed to be no way of accomplishment. She knew only too well Marjorie’s utter lack of sentimental interest in Hal; her rooted aloofness to “love” as Hal had hoped she might experience it. “A regular stony heart,” Jerry had secretly characterized her.

Jerry had shrewdly divined for herself the true state of affairs between the two. Neither had ever spoken intimately to her of the other. Nevertheless when Marjorie had left Severn Beach for her midsummer journey to Hamilton during the summer previous, Jerry had been convinced that she had “turned Hal down.” She had wondered then, and since, how Marjorie could fail to love her big, handsome brother—not because he had been devoted to her since their first meeting—but for himself.

The expression of good-natured amusement which had visited her face during the reading of Helen’s letter remained until she had read Hal’s note several times. Then concern replaced it, making her round face very solemn. She shot a covert glance at Marjorie who was deep in Mary Raymond’s letter. She had already devoured the contents of her General’s and Captain’s letters. Both had been comparatively short and loving inquiries as to whether they might hope for her “gracious presence at Castle Dean over Thanksgiving.” Neither superior officer had made a point of asking her to come home. Unselfishly, as ever, they deferred to her judgment.

Marjorie had gulped down her rising emotions as she had read and realized afresh her father’s and mother’s breadth of spirit. She had taken up Mary’s letter, feeling that she must go home at all events for the holiday. Mary had the long and astonishing confidence to impart that she had fallen in love, was engaged to be married the following September and that her engagement was soon to be announced at a formal luncheon to be given for her by her mother.

“Oh, Jerry!” Marjorie looked up brightly from her letter. “Mary’s going to be married. I’ll tell you all she writes about the great event while we are getting ready for bed. I haven’t time now.” Her hands were busy opening the letter from Constance as she spoke. Again she dropped into silence and the perusal of Connie’s letter. “Isn’t it too bad?” she soon cried out. “Connie and Laurie are not going to be in Sanford for Thanksgiving. Laurie promised a composer friend of his to be present at the first performance of his new opera ‘The Azure Butterfly.’ He and Connie are going to New York.”

“That settles it for me. There’ll be one distinguished mug missing on the campus. I’m going home for Turkey Day.” Marjorie’s news concerning Constance and Laurie had crystalized Jerry’s wavering resolve to go to Sanford. “Poor old Hal! A fine time he’d have with all of us away!”

A swift flood of crimson deepened the glow in Marjorie’s cheeks; rose even to her white forehead. She stared self-consciously at Jerry for an instant. Without a word she laid down Connie’s letter and took up the envelope addressed to her in Charlie Stevens’ straggling hand.

First exploration of its contents and she broke into a low amused laugh: “Do listen to this, Jerry,” she begged.

Jerry raised her eyes from Hal’s letter, at which she had been soberly staring. She was provoked with herself for having mentioned Hal to Marjorie as an object for sympathy.

Occupied with the letter from Charlie, Marjorie did not notice Jerry’s gloomy features. Mirthfully she read:

“Dear Marjorie:

“I think your last letter to me was a dandy. I read it twice and I was going to read it again only I lost it. Maybe I lost it on the football ground or in the street. But if anyone finds it they’ll see your name on the end of it and guess that I am the right Charlie it belongs to. Then I might get it again. I know you won’t be mad cause I lost it. I couldn’t help it.

“Connie is going to New York with Laurie for Thanksgiving. She has to go because he is her husband. We are very sorry. I don’t mean we are sorry because Laurie is her husband but because they are going away. The band is coming to our house for a party on Thanksgiving evening. I am going to play an awful hard piece on my fiddle that Father Stevens composed just for me. You’d better come home and then you can come to see us that night. I like you, Marjorie, quite a bit better than Mary Raymond. Connie says Mary is going to be married. I used to say when I was real little that I was going to marry her. I don’t say it now. I didn’t know any better then.

“I hope there will be snow and ice on Thanksgiving. Will you go skating on the pond with me if there is? I can skate fine and make a figure eight and a double loop on the ice. Hal Macy took me to the Sanford ice rink last Saturday afternoon. He showed me how to make the figure eight. He is a dandy fellow, only he doesn’t talk much. You ought to see him play basket ball. He has all the Sanford fellows beat. I like him because he always goes around with the fellows and not the girls. He thinks you are quite nice. I let him read your letter before I lost it and he said I was a lucky kid. I could write some more but I can’t think just what to write. I will write some more some other time. You had better come home soon. You and me and Hal Macy will go skating. It is all right for you to go with him. He would just as soon go any place with you because he has been to your house lots of times to parties and you have been to his house and that’s the way it is. I have to go and practice an hour on my fiddle so good-bye Marjorie and I send you my love. Hurry up home.

“From your best friend,

  “Charlie Stevens.”

“Good for that kid!” The cry of approbation came straight from Jerry’s heart. “Old Hal has had a lonesome time in Sanford for the past two years. He could have gone into business for himself in New York after he was graduated from college, but he knew Father needed him in his business.” Jerry checked herself with the reminder that Hal would not wish her to glorify him, especially to Marjorie.

“Hal is splendid.” Marjorie was always first to give Hal his due, impersonally. “I know it has been lonesome for him in Sanford without the old crowd and—and—he must miss you so, Jerry,” she finished rather lamely. She meant it in all earnestness. She understood perfectly the bond between Hal and Jerry.

“Not half so much as I’m sure he misses you.” Jerry grew bold for once. “This is what he has written me. You can see for yourself what a good sport he is.” She did not look at Marjorie as she read:

“Dear Jerry:

“Yours of last week appreciated. You haven’t yet said what you are going to do about Thanksgiving. That I suppose will depend on the way matters stand at Hamilton. If you don’t come home I will keep Father and Mother busy looking after me so they won’t miss you too much. Connie and Laurie will be in New York over Thanksgiving so I must cheer up Charlie by taking him to the football game between the Riverside Giants and the Sanford High team. I have been coaching the Sanford fellows a little. It’s going to be some game. Hope you’ll be on hand to see it.

“Just remind Marjorie that I wrote her last. Tell her she can square herself with me by coming home for Thanksgiving. Connie told me yesterday she had written to Marjorie. Hard lines to have Connie and Laurie away on the grand old day. Better try and see what you can do for me. With love. Good night old kid.

“Hal.”

“Why, I don’t owe Hal a letter!” Marjorie regarded Jerry in surprise. “He owes me one.”

“He does?” Jerry showed more surprise than had Marjorie. “Well, I believe both of you. It’s a plain case of ‘all have won.’ Meanwhile where is that latest glowing proof of a flourishing correspondence?”

“Lost in the mail, perhaps,” Marjorie guessed. She became silent for a moment. “I’m doubly sorry about it. I shouldn’t care to have Hal think—” Marjorie paused; looked away from Jerry’s keen blue eyes, so like Hal’s, in confused embarrassment.

“You know what to do.” Jerry kindly ignored the embarrassed slip. “Go present him with your regrets in person. I’ll give a hop, and invite you to it. Won’t that be nice? Old Hal won’t care if you are the only one invited.” She could not refrain from a side-long glance at Marjorie.

“Imagine Hal and me dancing solemnly around your big ball room together, the only guests at your hop.” Marjorie forced a laughing tone of raillery.

“Nothing would please him better,” Jerry stoutly maintained. It was the nearest to an opinion concerning Hal’s and Marjorie’s non-progressive love affair that wary Jerry had ever ventured.

CHAPTER VIII.
 
TWO THINGS SHE KNEW ABOUT LOVE

This time the blue and brown eyes met squarely. Marjorie’s expression was a mixture of tolerance, vexation and resignation.

“I said it.” Jerry read the glance aright. “I’ll say it for myself, too. Nothing would please me better. You know the rest. It’s the first, last and only appearance of Jeremiah as a buttinski. I knew that someday, somehow, somewhere I’d say something about you and Hal. ’Scuse me, Bean, ’scuse me.” Jerry’s apology was half joking, half earnest.

“Why—I—why—Jerry!” Marjorie stammered. She grew rosy from white throat to the roots of her curly hair. Concerning Hal’s avowal of love, her captain had been her only confidant. Even Constance did not know the circumstances of that bright summer afternoon which she had spent with Hal aboard the Oriole. “Why—Jurry-miar!” She used Danny Seabrooke’s nickname for Jerry, with a rather tremulous laugh. “Who—I never—”

“Nope; of course not.” Jerry’s reply was comfortingly positive. “Both you and Hal belong to the high inner order of the tight-shell clam. I can only guess how you stand with each other. I know he loves you. Never think he told me that. I knew it almost as soon as we first met you. It’s the same true love, broadened and deepened, that he’s giving you today. I wish you cared about him even one-half as much as he cares about you. You’d be loving him some. But I’m afraid you don’t. And that’s flat.”

“No, Jerry I don’t, and it is a relief to be able to say it frankly to you.” Marjorie’s recent confusion was clearing away. Her grave serenity of tone robbed her candid confession of all harshness.

“I’ve always hated to believe you didn’t for Hal’s sake. I was pretty sure of it last summer at the beach,” was Jerry’s sober answer.

“I’m never going to marry, Jeremiah,” Marjorie informed her room-mate with a kind of pessimistic solemnity. “If I couldn’t love Hal enough to be his wife, knowing how splendid he is, surely I couldn’t marry any other man. Don’t think me selfish because I put my work at Hamilton above love. It is life to me—my highest, most complete ideal.”

Jerry surveyed her chum’s lovely, but very dignified features for an instant. She was divided between a desire to admire Marjorie’s lofty purpose in life and shake her soundly for her deliberate repudiation of Hal and his warm true love.

“I—I’m not sorry you spoke to me of Hal. I’d like you to know that—that we’re not betrothed—nor never will be.” Marjorie’s voice dropped on the last four words. “Only Captain and General know. Not even Connie. I don’t think I have the right to tell her. If Hal tells Laurie, he may ask Laurie to tell Connie. I hope so.”

“I know old Hal wouldn’t tell me.” Jerry’s voiced conviction was emphatic. Jerry was more disturbed than she then realized by the “wallop” which Marjorie had managed to “hand” old Hal somewhere along the road of time from the date of Connie’s wedding. She was inwardly convinced that the “turn-down” had come at the beach.

“I shall tell him that I have told you, Jerry,” Marjorie quietly announced. “It is Hal’s privilege to tell Laurie and your father and mother. It was mine to tell either you or Connie as my closest girl friend. I have chosen to tell you. You are as dear to me as Connie; but not dearer. Only—in this you have the first right to know.”

Marjorie smiled very tenderly on Jerry. Her plump, but not over-plump, partner in the journey through the land of college sat abstractedly scribbling on the back of one of her envelopes, head bent low. She was not far from tears. Jerry loathed tears when, on rare occasions, she had been what she termed “cry-baby” enough to shed them.

“Much obliged.” She now spoke gruffly to hide her threatened flow of emotion. “I—I wish you felt differently about Hal, Marjorie. I—I—always looked forward to having you for my sister in that way.” Jerry absently turned the envelope over and continued to write on its under side.

“Oh, Jeremiah, you’re just as much my sister now as you would be if I were—” Marjorie suddenly checked her impulsive assurance. Her honest nature compelled her to desist. No; it was not the same. She knew that no declaration of sisterhood to Jerry on her part could compare with the delight which would be her chum’s were they to become sisters through her marriage with Hal.

“Not the same, Bean; not the same.” Jerry shook a positive head.

“I know it isn’t. I knew it almost as soon as I said it,” Marjorie admitted rather humbly. “I love you a lot, Jerry. Most of all because you have always loved me and wanted me for your sister. I’m glad you spoke to me about Hal. There’s one thing I can do for him. Go to Sanford and help you give him a jolly Thanksgiving. We owe it to him to please him; more than we do to please the dormitory girls. He’s the one most in need of good cheer this Thanksgiving.”

“Ha-a-a-a!” Jerry sat up very straight and drew a long relieved breath. “You’re the best little sport, Marjorie Dean! I was afraid you might not care to see poor old Hallelujah on account of having turned him down.”

“I sha’n’t mind seeing Hal,” Marjorie said slowly, “for truly, Jerry, in my own way I like him as well as ever. I haven’t changed toward Hal. My attitude toward him is purely that of friendship. But he has changed. We’re like two persons, standing on opposite banks of a broad river, trying to call across to each other. Neither of us can understand the other. I wonder why true friendship can’t content Hal. He wonders why I can’t understand love.” She cast an almost mournful glance toward Jerry which Jerry did not forget for many days afterward.

“I only know two things surely about love,” Marjorie continued after a brief silence. “One is that I have never been in love. The other is that without love no marriage can be happy. And now let’s not talk of love any more, ever again, Jeremiah,” she ended in a whimsical tone which made Jerry smile.

“All right. Anything to please you, Bean,” she replied. She was secretly elated over Marjorie’s decision concerning Thanksgiving. Nothing could please Hal more she was sure. “It’s midnight, anyway. Time we put a curb on our talk fest.” She rose to begin preparations for sleep. She would have liked to assure Marjorie of how glad “old Hal” would be, but had agreed to Marjorie’s taboo.

Marjorie gathered up her handful of letters from the table, a contented little smile showing at the corners of her red mouth. She was glad that she and Jerry were going home; that the momentous decision had been made. Picking up the last envelope left on the table she saw it was not one of hers, but Jerry’s. A fresh flood of scarlet flew to her cheeks as she saw scribbled across the envelope in Jerry’s hand: “Marjorie Dean Macy.”

CHAPTER IX.
 
MEETING HER MATCH

“Why won’t you go to New York over Thanksgiving, Leslie?” Doris Monroe’s accustomed indifferent drawl quickened to longing exasperation, all but ready to burst bounds.

“Don’t choose to,” came with laconic self-will from Leslie Cairns. She cast an insolent, inquiring glance toward Doris who was busy driving the white car which Leslie had named the Dazzler and loaned Doris for her own use. The pretty sophomore’s injured expression brought a faintly mocking smile to Leslie’s loose-lipped mouth.

“Oh, I know you don’t choose to,” declared Doris in a purposely weary tone. She continued to keep her eyes steadily on the road ahead. “Why don’t you choose to?” she questioned, growing more pointed.

“You ought to know without asking,” Leslie grumbled. “You are just like Natalie Weyman, my New York pal. You can’t remember, or be taught to remember, that business is business. Nat is as crazy to have me go to the Weyman’s New York house for Thanksgiving as you are to have me go with you to New York. I can’t see either of you when I have so much at stake here.”

“I beg your pardon.” Doris turned politely chilling. “I had no intention of breaking in upon yours and Miss Weyman’s plans.” Her coolness arose not from jealousy. Leslie’s rebuff had hurt her pride. She had more than once suspected that Leslie’s frequent allusions to “my pal, Nat,” were made simply to arouse her jealousy.

Doris was too comfortably wrapped up in self to be jealous-hearted. She had a private conviction that a girl who might prefer the friendship of another girl above her own was of small consequence.

Frowning, Leslie shot a second glance at Doris. Her shrewd dark eyes read mainly in Doris’s lovely blonde profile supreme discontent at not being able to have her own way.

“You didn’t break into anything,” Leslie gruffly assured. “That is what you and Nat Weyman seem possessed to try to do, though.”

“What do you mean, Leslie?” Doris turned offended eyes for a brief second on her companion.

“I mean you two seem determined to wreck the promising business career of Leslie Adoré Cairns,” Leslie retorted with grim humor.

“Adoré!” Doris exclaimed irrelevantly. “What a darling name!”

“Just suits me, doesn’t it?” Leslie threw back her head and indulged in her silent hob-goblin laugh.

“No, it doesn’t,” Doris said with amazing candor; “but it might.”

“What?” For once Leslie’s pet monosyllable burst involuntarily from her lips.

“I said it might suit you,” calmly returned Doris, “if you would try to make it suit you. You’ve loads of personality, Leslie; the kind that would make people like you a lot if you cared to have them like you.”

“I’m not keen on having people like me, even if I do happen to have a foolish middle name.” From interest Leslie’s tone had quickly changed to one of mild derision. “I mean I wouldn’t lift my finger in order to stand well with a gang of girls. That’s the way Bean made herself popular on the campus; pretending to be so kind and helpful; setting up goody-goody standards and poking her inquisitive nose into a lot of things that didn’t concern her. Then there was the Beauty contest. She won that. It gave her a strong pull with the upper class girls. All except the Sans.” Leslie’s displeasure against Marjorie rose with the recital of past troubles. “They knew the judges at the contest hadn’t played fairly. Nat Weyman should have won the contest. Wish you’d been a freshie that year. Bean wouldn’t have had a look-in.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure of that,” disagreed Doris, with intent to be provoking. “Miss Dean is really beautiful, Leslie. I’d hate to believe that she is more beautiful than I. Sometimes I’m not sure but that she is,” Doris gave a self-conscious, half rueful laugh.

“What ails you?” Leslie demanded darkly. “I thought you said you had no use for Bean and her crowd. Look where you’re going. You almost zipped us into that limousine.”

Doris’s honest, if reluctant, opinion of Marjorie fanned the flame of Leslie’s too-ready ill humor. She immediately vented it upon Doris’s driving.

“No, I did not almost run the car into that limousine,” was the other girl’s flat contradiction. “What is the use in growing peevish with me, Leslie? You know I detest Miss Dean and that Sanford crowd. The only one of them who appears in the least interesting is Miss Harding. She’s a barbarian, but she has individuality. I can’t forget she’s on earth, you know, since I have her as a room-mate.”

As she spoke Doris had slowed the speed of the car for a stop before the Lotus, the tea room where they had decided to go for a Saturday afternoon luncheon.

“She’s a savage; so is Macy.” Leslie invariably referred to Muriel and Jerry as “those two savages.” “She’s clever, too, that Muriel Harding. The Sans would have taken up with her and Macy and Lynde when they came to Hamilton if they hadn’t been so crazy about Bean. Macy’s father’s a millionaire and Lynde’s father is a multi-million man. Harding would have got across on her nerve. All three rallied round the Bean standard and lost out with the Sans.”

It was on Doris’s tongue to say: “Then they were lucky, after all, since the Sans were expelled from college.” Instead she held her peace. She intended to try once more to coax Leslie to re-consider her decision not to go to New York. Such a remark from her now about the Sans would only stir Leslie into fresh irritation.

Doris sent a backward, lingering glance toward the shining white car as the two girls started up the wide cement walk to the tea room.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be there when we come back,” Leslie said with a half mollified smile. Doris’s proud anxiety concerning the white car was not lost on her. It suited Leslie to pose as a benefactor.

“It’s such a dream,” sighed Doris. Her color heightened; her blue eyes shone starry triumph of the smart white roadster.

“I’ve engaged a Thanksgiving table already at the Colonial,” Leslie announced, tucking her arm inside one of Doris’s. “I tried to get one at Baretti’s but the dago is sore at me. His tables are always engaged beforehand if I happen to want one on a holiday.”

“Couldn’t we go to New York the day before Thanksgiving and come back to Hamilton the day after?” Doris once more pleaded. “You won’t transact any business here on Thanksgiving Day.”

“That’s what you say,” Leslie made instant rejoinder. She laughed as though she was in possession of a rich joke. “I’ve a special business stunt to put over here on Thanksgiving Day. Get it straight this time, Goldie. I am not going to New York.”

“Then I shall go there alone.” Doris stopped on the threshold of the Lotus. She faced Leslie angrily as she made the stubborn announcement. For an instant the two girls fairly glared at each other.

“Go on inside, for goodness sake,” Leslie roughly requested. She had turned incensed eyes from Doris in time to spy three Hamilton students coming up the walk. Luckily their attention was focussed on the white car. Two of them glanced back at it. It was apparently the topic they were discussing.

“I meant what I said,” Doris began haughtily the moment they had seated themselves at a table. “You are so very queer. You seem to forget that I know London and Paris. What is New York to me?” Doris snapped contemptuous fingers. “Merely another large city.”

“You’ll find it a handful, if you try to tackle it all by your lonesome,” was Leslie’s satiric prediction.

“I don’t need, necessarily, to go there alone. I know two sophs who would be glad—”

“Forget it,” Leslie interrupted with a gesture of dismissal. “The three of you would have nothing on ‘Babes in the Wood,’ or any other of those lost nursery kids. In New York, unless you’ve been born and brought up there, you have to know the right sort of people, or you can’t have a good time. I could give you a letter of introduction to Nat Weyman, if I wanted to, but it wouldn’t do. She’d not like you, and you’d not like her.”

“I fail to understand why New York should be so—so different from London and Paris.” Doris was still haughty, though she was somewhat impressed by what Leslie had just said. “I don’t wish to meet Miss Weyman.”

“Use your brain,” Leslie impatiently advised. “London and Paris are like a couple of villages to you because you know ’em. New York would be a howling wilderness to you. Why? Because you don’t know it. Simmer down, Goldie. I’ll take you to New York with me the week after Christmas. Our town house is closed this winter but I have an apartment in New York and a chaperon whom I’ve taught to mind her own business. You can help me here a good deal on Thanksgiving Day by wearing that new costume of yours that matches the Dazzler. I want to make a splurge at the Colonial, for reasons of my own.”

“Of course I wish to help you, Leslie.” Doris was somewhat mollified by the Christmas prospect. She flushed hotly at Leslie’s pointed reminder concerning her new costume and the car. Leslie had presented her with the white fur hat and coat, an exquisite white silk gold-embroidered gown and slippers and hose which made up the “costume.”

“Then look pleasant, and listen to me,” Leslie curtly directed, her eyes fixed on the other girl’s rapidly clearing features. “Drive the Dazzler to the Hamilton House for me at exactly eleven o’clock, on Thanksgiving Day. We’ll go for a drive and stop at the Colonial at two o’clock for dinner. After dinner we’ll go for another drive. Then back to supper at the Colonial. There’s a good movie theatre in Hamilton. We might go to it in the evening. You can easily run up to the campus and put the car away before the ten-thirty bell rings.”

“Why not go to Orchard Inn for supper instead of the Colonial? Since there’s been so little snow the roads are fine.” Doris made a last desperate effort to have matters arranged partly as she wished.

“Too far away from the campus. My main idea is to be seen with you in all your glory on Gobbler Day. I shan’t tell you why. Don’t ask me. You’ve said you wanted to help me. Prove it by doing just as I tell you when I ask you to do something for me.” Leslie leaned back in her chair and surveyed Doris with the air of a dictator. She was giving a faithful imitation of a favorite pose of her father.

“Very well.” Doris relapsed into displeased silence. She allowed Leslie to order the luncheon and continued mute after the waitress had left them.

Leslie pretended not to notice Doris’s frigidity. She busied herself with the menu, hunting a dessert to her taste. When she had selected it she cast the card on the table with impatient force.

“Don’t meet me at all Thanksgiving Day, if it will be too much of a strain,” she sarcastically told Doris. She knew that Doris was too deeply obligated to her to make such a course of action probable.

Doris viewed her with the cold, measuring glance which Leslie had more than once privately admired in Goldie.

“I don’t mind meeting you and doing as you ask me Thanksgiving Day, Leslie,” she said coolly. “What I do mind is your dictatorial manner. And sometimes you’re really insulting.”

“Can’t help it. That’s the way my father is, and that’s the way I’d rather be. You said I could make people like me if I tried. I wouldn’t try. I’d rather have power; the kind that would make people do as I said because they were afraid of me; afraid to do anything different. That’s the kind my father has. He’s a great financier. Of course his money has helped him climb to where he is, but he has an iron-strong will. His father left him a fortune, but he’s made millions of dollars since then.”

Leslie’s voice vibrated with melancholy pride as she poured forth this praise of her father. She had not told Doris of her estrangement from him, nor did she purpose to tell her. She had long since arrived at the conclusion that her father was not indifferent to her welfare. Mrs. Gaylord had, in a fit of confidence, admitted to Leslie that she had been engaged by Mr. Cairns to chaperon her. Accordingly the two had come to amicable terms. Mrs. Gaylord had amiably consented to go visiting among her many friends and relatives a large share of the time, thus leaving Leslie free to her own devices. She had seen Leslie established in Hamilton at the Hamilton House, had remained with her a week and gone on to visit a friend with the usual understanding that the receipt of a telegram from Leslie would insure her immediate return.

“I should think you’d rather be in New York in business so that your father could help you, since he’s such a wonderful financier.” Doris’s practical and wholly innocent observation raised the red of embarrassment in Leslie’s dark face.

“My father is—” Leslie fought down the confusion into which her companion’s remark had thrown her. “Didn’t you hear me say our town house was closed?” she asked grumpily. “My father’s in Europe just now. Besides, this garage business I’m in is to be a surprise for him. When he finds I’ve made good he’ll be ready to let me into some of his high finance deals.”

Leslie’s pet dream was re-instatement into her father’s favor as a result of her own daring brilliancy in business. Aside from the pleasure of “making things hum for Bean” she thought well of her garage project. It was the first step upward in the business career she had set her heart upon.

“There’s something I want you to do for me—not later than tomorrow,” Leslie dictated, regardless of Doris’s protest against her dictatorial manner.

“What is it?” Doris again turned her measuring glance upon Leslie.

“I want you to find out whether Bean’s going off the campus for Thanksgiving. I must know. Find out the same about Page, too.” Leslie’s rugged features were set with dogged purpose. Her usually loose lips were now formed into a tight line.

“I’m not certain I can find that out by tomorrow. I may not be able to let you know before next Tuesday,” Doris replied with dignity. “Miss Page’s and Miss Dean’s friends are not mine,” she reminded with irony.

“That need make no difference. It’s important to me to know.” Leslie tapped on the table with an authoritative index finger in further emphasis of each word. “You promised to help me, Goldie. Is this the way you keep your promise? And with all I’ve done for you!”

“Don’t be so silly, Leslie. I’m not in the least afraid of you. You can’t bully me even a tiny bit. I told you I’d help you, and I will. But you must allow me to use my own judgment in some things. If that doesn’t please you, take back all you’ve given me. I can get along nicely without your further help. I don’t fancy gifts that have strings attached to them.” Doris elevated her chin to a haughty angle.

Leslie’s face lost its tensity and registered half a dozen varied expressions while Doris was announcing her declaration of independence. At the last a look of glum perplexity replaced the others. While she had been leader of the Sans at Hamilton she had had many altercations with her chums. She had never taken their angry protests against her tyranny seriously. No one of them had actually defied her except Dulcie Vale, and she had “begun” on Dulcie.

Face to face with a girl who coolly ordered her not to be “silly,” and declined to be bound by obligation further than she chose Leslie had received the surprise of her life.

“Let me know as soon as you can. Phone me at the hotel and I’ll meet you.” The dessert she had ordered, untouched, Leslie rose from her chair. She had determined to show Doris that she was deeply offended.

Without saying good-bye she stalked sulkily from the tea room. On her way to the door she demanded the check from the waitress and stopped at the desk to pay it. She half hoped Doris would hurry after her and beg her to go back. Instead Doris sat tranquilly at the table Leslie had quitted and enjoyed her dessert of Nesselrode pudding. For once Leslie had met her match.