Marjorie Dean College Freshman Part 17

"You goose!" exclaimed Helen, in an undertone. "Come on. There's Muriel just going into line with Miss Barlow." She giggled at the idea of stiff Moretense courting beauty honors. "If Marjorie sees all of us in it she will join, too. Otherwise she will stay out of it, and Veronica along with her. Either one of them are positively stunning types. Only I would vote for Marjorie. She really is the prettiest girl I ever saw. Why, on the campus now, the really worth-while girls rave over her."

"Maybe the judges won't see it that way," deprecated Jerry. "Do you know them?"

"Yes, I do. They are all right. Leila picked them and she is always fair. I told you this was her work. Now come on." Helen slipped an arm into Jerry's and towed her, unresisting, into the long line that was now moving decorously around the gymnasium. Needless to say, the Sans had joined it. Even Lola Elster, accompanied by Leslie Cairns, had swaggered into line. Both had arrived late, attired in expensive, but somewhat flashy fall sports suits and hats. Neither removed her hat when dancing, a proceeding which many of the juniors and seniors present regarded with no leniency. The Sans appeared to consider this rude ignoring of convention a huge joke. Lola Elster's impudent face bespoke her satisfaction in having thus defied the canons of good taste.

By the time the entire procession had pa.s.sed the judges' stand once, fully two-thirds of the company had joined it. Marjorie had been among the last to do so. Even then she would have preferred to stay out of the contest, had not Leila insisted that she must take part in it, pointing out to her Jerry, Muriel, and greatly to her surprise, Ronny, among the aspirants.

"It is only for fun, modest child," argued Leila, in her most persuasive tones. She had foreseen this very snag in the way of her plan. Already the line had pa.s.sed the stand for the second time. "Ah, come on!" she implored, catching Marjorie by the hand.

With a half sigh of reluctance, Marjorie yielded. Next second, Leila was hurrying her across the lower end of the room where the last of the procession was just rounding a corner. At least a third of the guests had elected to stay out of the contest. From different points of the gymnasium arose an energetic clapping of hands as Marjorie and Leila caught up with the line. Leila chuckled under her breath. Marjorie's reluctance had only served to strengthen her chances for winning. Leila knew that the judges' decision could not be attacked. She had been careful to select three seniors whose word was law at Hamilton. If they p.r.o.nounced Marjorie Dean the most beautiful girl present, then, undoubtedly, she was.

As for Marjorie, she felt her face flame until it seemed to her that it must be bright vermilion. She experienced a momentary desire to upbraid Leila for thus bringing her into such undesired notice. She had not realized how conspicuous their cutting across the corner had made them until the applause had begun. Walking ahead of Leila, she was so chagrined at her own stupidity that she moved along mechanically, hardly cognizant of what was happening.

It seemed a long time to her before the line completed its third tour of the room. Came an echoing order from one of the judges to halt and the contestants obeyed with admirable alacrity. Part of them were viewing the beauty judges with smiles, perfectly content in knowing they would not be chosen. To a number, however, the contest had taken on a serious aspect. Two very pretty freshmen, pets of the Sans, stood looking at the judges as though determined to force their approval. Among the Sans Soucians there was an element of alertness that pointed to a smug belief in their claim to beauty.

Of the contestant, none was more concerned in the decision than Natalie Weyman. For a whole college year she had been acclaimed as the Hamilton College beauty. While considerable of this reputation had been built up for her by the Sans, it had gained ground, for one reason or another.

She had taken care to live up to it, spending time and money in the cause of her personal adornment. Now, after having fought hard for it, she did not propose to relinquish it. She was inwardly furious over the contest. There were half a dozen girls whom she feared, all looking radiantly lovely. Vera Mason had never looked prettier. Martha Merrick was simply stunning in that maize tissue gown. More than once that evening Natalie had watched Muriel with a frown. But those other two hateful girls! Her envy had been thoroughly aroused by Marjorie's and Ronny's gowns. Her jealousy was rampant because of the beauty of their wearers. Though nothing could have forced from her the truth, she knew that the palm belonged to Marjorie.

Standing a little in front of a group of her friends, where she might be plainly seen by the judges, she a.s.sumed an att.i.tude in which a portrait painter had posed her for a portrait the previous winter. Having slyly loosened one of the orchids from the cl.u.s.ter she was wearing, she began picking it to pieces, her head slightly bent. Falling into the pose with consummate art of the practiced deceiver, she really made an attractive study.

Marjorie and Leila had halted almost the length of the gymnasium from Natalie, to Leila's inward vexation. She had hoped to see the two brought close together. She was sternly determined to see the false colors stripped from Natalie Weyman, whom she despised for a just reason which no one but herself knew.

"Let us have faith that the judges have good eyesight," she muttered, as the judge who had delivered the charge to "Beautye brighte" held up a brown-winged arm for silence.

If the single gesture had been a wizard's charm, it could hardly have taken effect more quickly. A hush, almost painful, ensued. The roll of the spokesman's announcing tones fairly jarred the absolute stillness.

"Upon our queste of Beautye brighte, we have not soughte in vaine. So manye maides of faire young pryde make hard the chosynge then. Nor had the taske been done e'en yet, walkyede Beautye not amongst ye. On Mystresse Marjorie, of the Deans, our critike favor falles. Beautye has she to bless the eye and satisfye the heart."

A murmur of acclamation began with the announcement of Marjorie's name.

It increased in volume until it drowned the judge's speech. "Delighted,"

that dignitary managed to shout so as to be heard, and, with a profound bow, waited for the noise to subside.

Standing beside Leila, who was applauding vigorously, a positive Ches.h.i.+re-cat grin on her usually indifferent face, Marjorie fervently wished that she might suddenly drop through the floor. Her embarra.s.sment was so great that she hardly knew in which direction to look or what to do. When quiet again descended the judge went on with the rest of a very complimentary speech. It ended in a summons to come to the stand and be acclaimed Beautye and receive Beautye's guerdon.

At this Marjorie absolutely balked. Neither could Leila nor several other students, who had gathered round her, persuade her to go forward.

It ended by a flushed and half indignant Beautye being forcibly marched up to the stand by a crowd of laughing girls. The guerdon was an immense bunch of long-stemmed American Beauty roses. Marjorie made a never-to-be-forgotten picture, as surrounded by her body guard, she stood with her arms full of roses and listened to the quaint adjuration to Beautye.

Unbidden tears crowded to her eyes as the judge ended with fine dramatic expression: "Brede ye, therefore sweete maids, no vanitye of the mind, but, say ye raythere, at even, a prayer of thankfulnesse for the gifte of Beautye, by the grace of G.o.d." The emotional side of her nature touched by the fineness of the sentiment, she forgot herself as its object.

A group of Silverton Hall girls, headed by Portia Graham and Robin Page, gathered to offer their warm congratulations. Entirely against her will, Marjorie Dean, Hamilton College freshman, had been accorded an honor which she had neither expected nor desired.

CHAPTER XX.-LIVING UP TO TRADITION.

To be ignored on one's arrival at Hamilton and in less than six weeks to be acclaimed the college beauty seemed the very irony of fate to Marjorie. The week following the freshman frolic was a hard one for her.

Used to going unostentatiously about with her chums, she now found herself continually in the limelight. Whenever she appeared on the campus she had the uncomfortable feeling that every movement of hers was being watched.

"You may thank your stars that you are at college where the newspapers aren't allowed to trespa.s.s," Ronny had laughingly a.s.sured her when she complained. Nevertheless she was far from pleased when a prominent ill.u.s.trator wrote her a polite note asking permission to make sketches of her. Worse still, she received later a letter from a New York theatrical manager offering her an engagement in a musical comedy he was about to launch. How either man had come into knowledge of her name she could not imagine.

While she had been deeply annoyed at the artist's note, she grew angry at the temerity of the theatrical manager and promptly tore the letter into shreds. How she wished that she had never allowed herself to be dragged into that foolish beauty contest. Afterward Leila had candidly owned to Marjorie her part in the affair. While Marjorie had been obliged to laugh at the Irish girl's clever move against the Sans, she had wondered whether she really liked Leila. Instead of being pleased over her triumph, she was distinctly put out about it.

"I never saw you so near to being really downright cross as you've been since that old beauty contest," observed Jerry one afternoon in late October, as Marjorie entered the room, a frown between her brows, a tired droop to her pretty mouth.

"I _feel_ like being downright cross," emphasized Marjorie, accompanying the last three words with three energetic slams of her book on chemistry on the table. "I wish this popularity business were in Kamchatka. I thought I would like to take a walk around the campus today, all by myself, and think about what I would write this evening. I have to write a theme for poetics to be handed in tomorrow morning. I wasn't allowed a minute to myself. There are some awfully nice girls here, but I wasn't anxious for company today. I haven't the least idea what I shall write and I wanted to save time by choosing my subject this afternoon."

"Go and ask Ronny for a subject," calmly advised Jerry. "She loves poems, poets and poetics in general. She is in her room writing to her father. She fired me out, but you may have better luck. She may have finished writing. It seems a long while since she inhospitably requested me to make myself scarce. My, but you are sympathetic!" Marjorie was already half way through the door, regardless of Jerry's plaint.

"Come in," called Ronny, in response to Marjorie's two measured raps.

"Oh, Marjorie, I was just coming to see you. I have a piece of news for you."

"Come along," invited Marjorie, "but first give me a subject for a theme for poetics. I need one in a hurry. Jerry said you were authority on the subject."

"I am amazed at her charity," chuckled Ronny, "after the way I shooed her away from my door."

"She mentioned it," returned Marjorie significantly, whereupon both girls laughed.

"Let me see," pondered Ronny. "Why don't you write on the genius Poe as above that of any other American poet? Ill.u.s.trate by quoting from other poets and then comparing the excerpts with his work. Read his essay on poetry tonight before you begin to write. It will give you inspiration.

I brought a five volume set of Poe from home. Here's the volume containing the essay you need."

Ronny took from a near-by book-case the desired volume and handed it to Marjorie.

"Thank you." Marjorie accepted it gratefully. "I believe I _can_ write a fairly good theme on that subject. I have always admired Poe's work."

"I adore his memory," a.s.serted Veronica solemnly. "I have read every sc.r.a.p I could find concerning him. He ranked next to Shakespeare in genius. I know he was an earnest worker and a good man. I am sure that he was not a drunkard, but a terribly maligned genius. He was purposely kept down through jealousy and had to sell the products of his genius for a copper. He suffered terribly, but I imagine he had the inner happiness of knowing that not one brilliant emanation of his master mind could be s.n.a.t.c.hed from him by the unworthy."

Veronica's gray eyes flashed in sympathy for the misunderstood man whose transcendental genius made him an outlander among the writers of his period.

"Again I thank you. This time for your lecture." Marjorie bobbed up and down twice in quick succession. "I'll try to put some of it into my theme. Now for my room, and the news."

Jerry pretended not to see Ronny until she was well inside the room. She then rose up, and, in a purposely gruff voice, ordered her out. Needless to say, Ronny was not to be intimidated.

"No, Jeremiah, I shall not budge an inch. Here you sit doing nothing.

Why shouldn't I come in and sit on Marjorie's side of the room? I have news to impart-n-e-w-s," spelled Ronny.

At this Jerry p.r.i.c.ked up her ears and became suddenly affable.

"I heard today," began Ronny impressively, "that there will be a basket ball try-out next Friday afternoon in the gym, at four-thirty."

"That's cheering news!" Marjorie's sober features lightened. "Where did you hear it, Ronny?"

"Miss Page told me. The notices will appear in a day or two. She played on a team all the time she was at Wildreth, a prep school she was graduated from. Naturally she is anxious to make the team this year."

"I'd like to play," Marjorie said wistfully. "I suppose I won't stand much chance among so many, though."

"Well, you won the Beauty contest," cited Jerry wickedly. "That was a case of one in a mult.i.tude."