Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore Part 8

"Where were you? We thought you were right behind us. What has become of your blonde fres.h.i.+e? We knew something had happened," was the reception which greeted her and her charge.

"Do blondes change to brunettes in the twinkling of an eye?" laughed Leila, her blue eyes resting very kindly on Marjorie's pretty companion.

"They do not. Miss Walbert deserted me. She knew Miss Myers and Miss Stephens. She went with them." Marjorie made the explanation in a calm, level voice which did not invite present questioning.

"Then we can't count her in with this select aggregation," Vera said dryly. "Helen's gone, too, but her going was legitimate."

"Ah, well. We have gained one and lost one. Let us run off with our gain before someone happens along and coaxes her away from us. Might we not know her by name?" Leila turned to Marjorie with a wide ingratiating smile. The stranger was already regarding Leila with open amus.e.m.e.nt.

"You shall know her by name at once. You don't have to remind me to introduce her," retorted Marjorie. "I'll present you to her first of all. Miss Impatience, I mean Miss Harper, this is Miss Severn, of Baltimore." Marjorie again went through the ceremony of introduction, this time with smiles and whole-heartedness.

"We are thirteen in number, but who cares?" Leila announced. "Seven to one and six to the other car, Midget. As we aren't in the jitney business we won't come to blows over the one extra fare."

While they were disposing themselves in the two automobiles for the ride to Hamilton College, the sound of high-pitched voices announced the arrival on the scene of the Sans. Three of the juniors who had elected to meet them had driven their own cars to the station. Thus the ill.u.s.trious Sans did not have to depend on the station's taxicabs.

While Leila would have liked to drive off in a hurry rather than encounter at such close range the girls she so heartily despised, she moved, instead, with the utmost deliberation. She was just climbing into the driver's seat when the small but noisy procession of young women came opposite to her car. Vera sat ready to start, her slender hands resting idly on the wheel as she waited for Leila's signal. The occupants of both cars, save for the freshman from Baltimore, were making a commendable effort to appear impersonal. Miss Severn, of Baltimore, was innocently interested in the newcomers from the fact that they were also students of Hamilton College.

Aside from considerable laughter, which sounded too pointed to be impersonal, the party of arriving juniors strolled past. Among the last came Leslie Cairns. She had insisted on walking with Elizabeth Walbert, greatly to Natalie's vexation. As she lounged past Leila's car she cast an insolent glance at the Irish girl. Leila returned it with an expression so inscrutably Celtic that Leslie hastily removed her gaze to Jerry, who sat beside Leila. She glared an intensity of ill-feeling at Jerry, which the latter longed to return, but did nothing worse than look blank.

Leila drove her car almost savagely around the station yard and out into the wide avenue. Sight of the Sans, particularly Leslie Cairns, had put her momentarily in a bad humor. Her virile Irish temperament forbade her to do other than love or hate with all her strength of being. She hated Leslie as energetically as she adored Marjorie.

"That Miss Walbert makes me sick," was Jerry's incensed comment as they bowled smoothly along the avenue. "I'd like to know just what happened to Marjorie. Of course she will tell us later. The idea of that little shrimp marching past us as though we were a collection of sign posts, particularly after we had treated her so decently. It's a good thing she showed her mettle from the start. Did you notice the way she snubbed my freshman?"

"I did. How, may I ask, do you happen to be out here with me instead of sitting faithfully in the tonneau beside your find?" quizzed Leila.

"Oh, Katherine and Lucy took her away from me. I guess I scared her. She is in Vera's car with them. If you don't enjoy my society, stop the buzz buggy and I will get out and walk. I may lose a pound or two, even if my feelings are hurt."

"It is here you'll stay. Tongue cannot tell how much I enjoy your society," Leila extravagantly a.s.sured. "I see you are liking the Sans a little less than ever. I am of the same mind. Did you see Leslie Cairns look at us; first at me, then you? I did not expect them back so soon.

For all their private car they met with a tiny reception. Four or five juniors; that is quite different from two years ago."

"Maybe they've come back early to be on the scene and get a stand-in with the fres.h.i.+es," cannily suggested Jerry. "Wouldn't it be funny to see us and the Sans down at the station every day, grabbing the fres.h.i.+es as they came off the train, like a couple of jitney drivers?"

Leila laughed. "They will never go that far. That would take some kindness of heart and consideration. If they rushed the incoming fres.h.i.+es just to spite us, they would soon sicken of their project. They are like the bandarlog in Kipling's Jungle books, they gather leaves only to throw them into the air."

"Some of them will take a trip up into the air this year if they don't mind their own affairs," threatened Jerry. "The freshman crop was small today. We garnered two and the Sans one. I suppose there were some others who were met by students besides ourselves. Marjorie thinks we ought to meet two trains a day, at least. The rest of our committee ought to be here. We could divide up the trains among us. You and Vera are really doing the work of the absent members."

"Say nothing about it. There is little to do this week. Vera and I were talking last night. We should have done this last year. We did not."

Leila shrugged disapproval of her own former lack of interest in the welfare of other students.

"Leila," Marjorie leaned forward and called out, "Miss Severn is going to Acasia House. Do you know where Miss Towne is to go?"

"Somewhere off the campus," returned Leila. "Vera has her and her address. We are to take her to her boarding place first."

Miss Towne's boarding house turned out to be a modest two-story brick house about half a mile off the campus. It was one of a scattered row, there being only a few houses in the immediate vicinity of the college.

Muriel and Katherine helped her to the door with her luggage. Her friendly escort called her a cordial good-bye from the automobiles, after promising to look her up as soon as she should be fairly settled.

She went to her new quarters in a daze of sheer happiness, feeling much as Cinderella must have when she unexpectedly found a fairy G.o.d-mother.

Acasia House being Miss Severn's destination, the two cars wound their way in and out of the beautiful campus driveway. At the center drive they separated, Vera taking her car straight to Wayland Hall on account of Selma, Nella and Hortense. Muriel went with them, declining to be parted from her recently regained room-mate.

Leila drove slowly toward Acasia House, endeavoring to give their freshman charge full opportunity to see the campus in its early autumn glory. Br.i.m.m.i.n.g with eager enthusiasm, Marjorie pointed out the various halls, the library, the chapel and the campus houses. She was pleased to find her freshman no less enthusiastic than herself over the campus itself. Marjorie took that as another good sign. No one who was really sincere at heart could fail to be impressed by the campus.

CHAPTER VIII.

HER FATHER'S METHODS.

"There is just one thing about it. We have _got_ to get busy." Leslie Cairns made this announcement with special emphasis on the word "got."

Her face wore an expression of sullen determination. "Those Sanford goody-goodies are out to do us."

"Out to do us?" repeated Natalie Weyman, with questioning inflection.

"What do you mean, Les? I failed to see any particular triumph on their part this afternoon. They merely marched off with a seedy-looking fres.h.i.+e or two. No one we wanted." Natalie shrugged her disdain of the Lookouts' capture. "Too bad that simple-acting Walbert creature didn't stay with dear Miss Bean. We could live without her. I have no use for that girl."

Leslie's eyes narrowed. She banged her dessert spoon on the table with a vicious clang and thrust her chin forward.

"Probably _you_ haven't, Miss Jealousy," she sneered. "I fail to see anything simple about Miss Walbert. She has three times as much sense as certain persons I could name."

"Meaning me, I suppose." Natalie's tone was equally sneering. She was white with anger, princ.i.p.ally at having been called "Miss Jealousy."

Leslie had often privately accused her of being jealous-hearted. This was the first time she had ever taunted her so openly of it.

"Won't you two _please_ stop sc.r.a.pping?" begged Margaret Wayne in a tired voice. "I thought we came to the Colonial for a pleasant evening.

It has been anything but that, with you two snarling back and forth at each other like a couple of tigers at the Zoo."

"Much obliged for the compliment," flung back Natalie in frost-bitten accents.

"Oh, you are entirely welcome." Margaret laid provoking stress on the "welcome."

"Looks as if the sc.r.a.p might be trusted to you, Wayne. You certainly can hold up your end of it." Leslie called her friends by their last names merely to be insolent. "Anyone can fuss with Nat, you know. She has the sweet disposition of a very sour pickle most of the time."

"Since that is your opinion of me, I am surprised you ever cared to be friends with me at all." Very near to tears, Natalie managed to preserve an offended dignity which had more effect upon Leslie than any sarcastic retort might have had. Nor was Natalie unaware of this.

Momentarily angered, she had made a strenuous effort to choke back the biting words just behind her lips. She always remembered one cold fact in time. It never paid in the long run to quarrel with Leslie.

"Oh, you are not so bad when one has grown used to you," Leslie patronizingly conceded. "Excuse me for losing my temper and telling you the plain truth about yourself."

Natalie's color rose. She hated Leslie's patronizing insolence more than she hated her open vituperation. She would have liked to say that she was amazed to learn that Leslie ever told the plain truth about anything. Prudence warned her to let the quarrel drop.

"I accept your apology, Leslie," she said with great sweetness, entirely ignoring the sting of Leslie's remarks.

"What?" Leslie stared. A faint snicker arose from two or three of the other girls. "You seem to have recovered your wits again, Nat," she said with elaborate carelessness. "We are quits, I guess, for the present."

"Thank goodness!" This from Joan Myers. "Now that peace has been restored, perhaps you will condescend to tell us what you started out to say, Leslie."

"De-lighted." Leslie bowed ironically. "To jump into the middle of the subject at once, I asked you seven Sans to this party tonight for a purpose. We eight girls are the founders of the Sans. I told all the other Sans that I wasn't going to ask them here tonight, and not to get their backs humped about it. I promised 'em a big party at the Ivy Sat.u.r.day night. There is a private dining room there with a long table that will seat the whole eighteen of us. I don't know whether they liked it or not, and I don't care. It was up to us to talk things over and let them into it afterward."

"Some of the girls had other engagements anyway," put in Joan Myers. "I know Anne Dawson and Loretta Kelly were invited to a senior blow-out at Alston Terrace."