Peggy Parsons a Hampton Freshman Part 26

Peggy again sprang into position as guard. "Don't," she cried out, and then added in a more natural voice: "You've got us all here, now go on with the auction."

"Oh," said Zelda, mystified, but amenable, "all right. I suppose she'll be back in a minute, and Ormsby can't do much anyway."

The auction went merrily forward, but Gloria didn't come back.

After an hour or so, when Peggy was sure the woman must have gone and the trying interview, whatever it was, must be over, she slipped from the room and went fearfully down the hall toward Number 20.

She knocked on the door, and entered when a cold "Come" sounded.

Gloria was seated shoeless on the couch, her red-gold hair in disarray, a frightened, hara.s.sed look in her wide eyes.

"Gloria," stammered Peggy, "do you want to talk to me?"

Gloria shot her a quick glance, searching, appealing and yet at the same time resentful.

"It depends," said Gloria. "Do you like me very much?"

"Very much," returned Peggy simply.

"Well, then," flung out Gloria unexpectedly, "I sha'n't tell you."

"Sha'n't tell me-because I like you?" cried Peggy indignantly. "Why, I never heard of such a thing!"

"Do you like me as well as you do Katherine?" the strange girl pursued.

A vision of Katherine, familiar, dear, loyal,-her own room-mate, rose mistily before Peggy's eyes.

"No," she said, truthfully, "of course not."

"Oh," Gloria answered, "then it isn't like the rest. Perhaps I can talk to you anyway. I know that it was your efforts that made me president, though, in the first place. Why did you do that?"

"Because I knew you were the girl for the place."

"But I wasn't."

"I think you have proved yourself to be all we hoped, and more."

"But you don't-know about things."

"I know a good deal. The freshmen swear by you. They would follow your example--"

"My example!"

"Yes, and they couldn't have a better pattern, Gloria."

"Oh, well, you are as bad as the rest. Please go and leave me. There's no use. I haven't anybody-go quickly, please--"

"Now, Gloria, you've been saying the strangest things. From your very odd remarks I gather that if I-didn't like you much, you'd think that made me a better confidante. Now, I can't hate you even to please you. I like you-awfully much-and did from the moment you came into our room at the beginning of the year--"

"It has nothing to do with my being president?"

"Not a thing in the world!"

With a little shuddering sob, Gloria reached for Peggy's hand, and in an instant her shaking shoulders were held fast in Peggy's rea.s.suring clasp.

"Everybody looks up to me so--"

"Yes," said Peggy, "and they ought."

"They ought not! Peggy, it wasn't good for me, such sudden prominence!

At home where I lived I was just one of a good many. I went abroad and traveled around and did not have an opportunity to establish much of a place for myself with any group. My father and mother are indulgent, but I've often heard my mother say she wished I didn't have red hair. And here the girls are crazy about it--"

Peggy smoothed the radiant hair in question, while a sudden smile curved her crooked little mouth.

"Oh, Gloria, child," she laughed, "I can see your trouble isn't going to be such a bugaboo after all. Go on and tell me now."

"And I've never managed my own money--"

"Now we're coming to it," thought Peggy.

"And, Peggy, you may not believe it, but we aren't so very rich, after all. I know that everybody says I'm a millionaire, but-we haven't anything so very much, really. And I was always the first one asked to contribute to everything-and I had to give quite a bit as president--"

"Ye-es," mused Peggy, "I never thought of that side of it."

"And I was expected to wear the most wonderful clothes-I heard the girls make the remark that Glory Hazeltine never wore the same evening dress twice-and-and I was vain. I've seemed indifferent, Peggy, I know, but in my heart I was vain. I'm just beginning to find myself out."

"You've found yourself out wrong," mused Peggy aloud, "and you are no vainer than any other girl would be in your position and with your a.s.sets."

"Well, then, I'm sorry for the others."

"Your story is that you were fiendishly extravagant, isn't that all?"

"All? Oh, Peggy!"

"Well, most of us have that failing to fight-and some have reasons to make it harder to win. But anyway, girlie, that doesn't seem very awful, after all. You know how the stores are? The dressmaking shops run after the popular girls and beg for their trade and offer them special prices and say, 'Oh, my dear, I shouldn't bother about paying now-just let it go on the account.' And the account seems so elastic-and you just order a gown or suit whenever you imagine you need one, and they are forever calling you up by phone and saying they have something extra nice--"

"I don't know," said Peggy thoughtfully; "I've found most of the stores in this town wonderfully lenient. They will carry an account on and on, and if you pay once a year they're satisfied. It must be a great inconvenience to them to handle such erratic accounts, but they know the college girls are _all_ honest and will pay sometime."

"And I could have paid _sometime_-but I dare not tell dad. He would think running such accounts was awful. This dressmaking place is not like the other concerns. They-they hound-you--"

Terror filled the baby-blue eyes.

"Well, you should have told somebody when you found it getting beyond you. I have quite a bit of money each month, and I don't know anything I'd rather--"

"Oh, but I shall not need it now." Gloria even smiled in her realization. "You see, I've sold everything I had for what it would bring, and-it made enough, I am thankful to say."

"Did you tell the woman?"

"Not how I got it, no. I endorsed Doris' check and handed it over to her as if I had been a princess--"