Jane Allen, Junior Part 3

"She has!" declared the excited Dozia. "Who would dare trust a live and workable phiz to that--traitor?"

"Not I," said Velma Sigsbee.

"Nor I," from Maud Leslie.

"My face must serve me this term," added Inez Wilson, twisting her features to make sure they worked well.

"All the same," demurred Judith, "the temptation is not to be laughed at. Just imagine real dimples speared in," with a finger poked in Maud Leslie's cheek, "and long silky lashes tangles in one's violet gaze----" This was too much even for staid juniors and the race that followed almost justified s.h.i.+rley's much criticised romp. With this difference: Wellington Hall was now out of the shadows made by the swaying stream of laughing students darting in and out of the autumn suns.h.i.+ne that lay like stripes of panne velvet on the sward, but s.h.i.+rley's run had begun at the very steps.

Recreation had its limits and that day was counted lost into which a race over the pleasure grounds had not been crowded. It might be for tennis, or even baseball, or yet to the lake, but a run was inevitable. And so they ran.

CHAPTER IV

THRILLING NEWS

Did you read your note, d.i.n.ksy?" Judith asked Jane, using the particular pet name adopted because of its very remote distance from the original.

"You know I did, Pally." This was from Pal, of course.

"A bomb threat?"

"Not quite." Jane's hair was rebellious this morning and just now received a real cuffing at its owner's hands.

"How perfectly peachy you would look bobbed, d.i.n.ksy. That color and those smooth silky curls! How the angels must have loved you. Know this line?

"'Methinks some cherub holds thee fair, For kissing down thy sunny hair I find his ringlets tangled there!'"

"You would," interrupted Jane sacrilegiously. "More than his ringlets tangled here this morning," with a final jab of the strongest variety of golden bone hair-pin. "Aunt Mary always said my mood (she meant temper) affected my hair. And I am sure she was always right about it."

"Well, you don't have to tell me about the note if you don't want to, Janie," pouted Judith. "But my idea is, you need counsel and I am as ever the expert."

"Fair Portia, thou shalt be my counsel ever. I had no thought of hiding the little note," insisted Jane, "but it is horribly disappointing. Wait until I rescue it from the basket. There's always a charm about the original." "Don't bother, please, Jane,"

begged Judith. "We are almost late and I hope for a set of tennis before cla.s.s. I need it every day to keep off the heartbreak.

Darlink Sanzie," she sniffled. "To think he will nary again bat a ball in my black eye."

"Why never again? There are other vacations."

"But no more Jacks like Sanzie. He is unique and has opened a law office by now. Can't you see his stenographer kicking his shapely s.h.i.+ns as he dictates? They always do that in the movies, and Sanzie is so up to date, even as to s.h.i.+ns. Now, Janie dear, let's along. En route you may tell me about the bomb threat. The corridors are clear."

"She simply wants a chance to talk to me, that's all----"

"But she can't have it," declared Judith. "As your counsel I forbid it. Just give that girl a chance and she will bind you over, body and soul; refined blackmail, you know. Don't you dare answer that note until I dictate the reply," Judith swung her arm around Jane's waist in the most all-embracing manner. "Please, d.i.n.ksy," she almost whispered, "wait until we are free this afternoon."

Thus they separated; Judith for her tennis and Jane for a turn on Bowling Green.

But Jane had a deeper problem to solve than even her chum suspected.

There was the broken mirror in Dozia's room and the fact that Dozia had actually hit s.h.i.+rley on the head with a hammer!

"A pretty record that--and made on the first night in college," Jane reflected.

Undoubtedly the freshman's demand that Jane "see her at once" had to do with the outrage. And the interview would be granted, of course, that very afternoon unless Judith interfered.

Incidentally Judith was turning the situation over in her own good- natured mind.

"I would just like to see that gawk get Jane wound up in her miseries," she told herself, while Janet Clarke hunted for stray tennis b.a.l.l.s in the hedge. "Jane is such a dear with sympathy that this girl's very crimes would appeal to her--in compa.s.sion. No-sir- ree!" She volleyed a vicious ball--"Jane will not see the impossible s.h.i.+rley alone just yet."

Meanwhile news of Dolorez Vincez's Beauty Shop had spread over the college like a holiday notice. Dolorez was the South American girl who had been expelled from Wellington the previous year because of irregularities in many things but particularly in basket ball games.

As told in the book, "Jane Allen: Center," this young lady was really a teacher of athletics, and had been posing as an amateur.

Being forced to leave college after opening a prohibited beauty shop she vowed vengeance, and many of the students now felt the Beauty Parlor, opened at the very gates of Wellington and widely advertised, was about to a.s.sume the dangers of a golden spider web.

The girls were fairly quivering with excitement, when Dozia Dalton, herald of the sensation, condescended to tell everybody all she knew about the whole thing.

Velma Sigsbee would insist upon interrupting with silly questions, such as the price of a bob or the possible pain of operating for double dimples, but eventually Dozia told the story while Ted Guthrie held Velma's hand in a compelling grip. It was over on the long low bench by the ball field where practice should have been kicking up a dust. But Dol's Beauty Parlor outrage was too delectable to forego even for a final ball game,

"It's perfectly darling," confided the idolized Dozia (any girl with that story on her person would be idolized although Dozia was individually popular). "The place, I mean. It's fitted up----"

"Were--you in?" gasped Winifred Ayres.

"No, of course I was not in," disdained Dozia. "No one who ever knew the trickery of Dolorez Vincez would enter that place."

"Why?" asked the innocent Nettie Brocton. "Would she really do something dreadful----"

"She would, really," declared Jane, her tone not easy to interpret.

"She could turn your hair a bright red like mine by mere chemical action of her ventilating system."

"Really!" implored the dimply girl.

"Pos-i-tive-ly!" declared Jane. "But don't attempt it dear. She would send your dad an awful bill for doing a stunt like that. Think of the price of hair like mine!"

That suggestion brought disaster to Jane, for Ted Guthrie swayed at the very end of the bench and the whole line almost went over backwards. It was in Ted's attempt to punish Jane for her vanity that the sudden sweep, like a current in physics, jerked feet from the ground and upset balance generally. Some seconds elapsed (and each was precious) before things again settled down, including Velma's crochet b.a.l.l.s, Janet's book, pad, and pencil, Dozia's small bottle of salted peanuts as well as other sundries and supplies.

"Please finish the yarn," implored Nettie Brocton. "Do tell us, Dozia, how the place is fitted up."

"First tell us, please," insisted judicial Judith, "how do you know how it is fitted up? Does our plumber plumb there?"

During all this nonsense Jane cast many a furtive glance along Linger Lane, expecting the obnoxious s.h.i.+rley to loom up large and lanky by the way, but as yet she had not darkened the shadowy path.

If Jane could run off to the Rockery, that landmark between freshman and later college campus lines, there to meet and have done with the demands of her erstwhile tormentor. But no, Judith was openly demanding Jane's concentration on the bench, and every point made by Dozia in her tale of the beauty shop Judith flung at Jane in direct challenge for stricter attention. She was not going to escape if Judith Stearns knew it, and she surmised the intention.

It had finally been told to tingling ears that the poisoned beauty shop, as Winifred Ayres, the writer, had already dubbed the place, was done in wonderful mirrors, and s.h.i.+ny faucets, windy wizzing hair fans and electric permanent wavers and curlers; and when the full description had been given, more girls than one sighed, groaned and grumbled.

"To think it has to be taboo," spoke Ted Guthrie. "Dol was always a wizard, and now thus equipped she might have a lovely way of fanning me thin."

"And fattening me nice and fluffy with the same fan," sighed Winifred.