“What is it?” asked Marjorie curiously. She could think of no effectual method of sealing Mignon’s wayward lips.
“Well, the best thing to do with Mignon is to elect her to an office in the club. Then she won’t dare to do anything but behave herself. The eyes of the club will be on her all the time. She’ll just have to walk a chalk line. She’ll do it, too. You know how well she behaved when Laurie gave her back her part in the operetta last Spring. She loves power and position. Make her an officer in the club and she’ll walk softly for fear of putting out her own bright light. What do you think about it, anyway?”
“It’s a good plan,” was Marjorie’s unhesitating answer. “I don’t believe it would be wise to have her for president, though, or even vice-president.”
“No, she’ll have to be secretary or treasurer,” declared Jerry quickly. “In a club of fourteen, four officers will be about as many as we shall need.”
“But suppose the girls don’t care to vote for her?” Tardy remembrance of this obstacle now confronted Marjorie.
“Oh, it will have to be a cut-and-dried election as far as Mignon is concerned.” Jerry grinned cheerfully as she made this bald statement. “You and I will have to do some electioneering. I’ll interview one half of the girls and leave the other half to you. We’d better decide now on the office she’s to have,” she added with the judicial air of a seasoned politician.
“We might propose her for treasurer,” said Marjorie after a moment’s reflection. “Very likely we won’t have much money at first, but it would make her feel more important to take care of it than to be secretary and just set down the minutes of the different meetings.”
“All right, we’ll see to it that she is elected treasurer. I expect it will be some surprise to her. I hope to goodness she appreciates it enough to behave like a Christian. If she doesn’t, you can blame me for the whole thing.”
“It will be just as much my fault as yours if the plan doesn’t work out well. It’s rather queer, Jerry, but just before you came I was wondering whether I had done right after all in proposing Mignon as a member of the Lookouts. I had just decided that I had, when you came and proved it to me by proposing that we elect her to an office in the club. It looks as though there were some hidden influence at work, far greater than we are, which is urging us on to help her find herself. Who knows how wonderfully our little plot may turn out after all?”
“You might better say, ‘Who knows how our little plot may turn out?’” grumbled Jerry. “It reminds me of a problem in algebra. Let X equal the unknown quantity, or rather let Mignon equal the unknown quantity. But let us once more be reformers or die in the attempt. We’ve started the ball rolling, so we’ll have to run along behind it and see that it keeps on rolling in the right direction.”
Their entrance into the school building cut the earnest conversation short. Marjorie left Jerry in the corridor and went on alone to Miss Archer’s office to apprise Lucy Warner of the new project and that the first meeting of the club was to take place at her home on the following evening. There was a distinct tinge of reserve in the green-eyed girl’s greeting, which informed Marjorie that Lucy was still slightly peeved over the incident of the lost letter. Diligent inquiry had failed to bring forth any news of it. It was now over a week since Marjorie had lost it, and there seemed small chance that it would materialize at this late date.
“I have an invitation to deliver to you, Lucy,” was Marjorie’s frank address. “Can you come to my house to-morrow evening after dinner? A number of other girls will be there, too. We are going to organize a club, and we should like to have you belong to it.”
For a moment Lucy regarded the winsome face before her with scowling indecision. She was very fond of Marjorie, yet she still cherished a slight resentment toward her. The friendly light in the other girl’s brown eyes, however, filled her with an overwhelming sense of shame for her own stubbornness. Her wrinkled forehead suddenly cleared and she said contritely: “I hope you’ll forgive me, Marjorie, for being so hateful to you about that old letter. I am sorry. Please forget that it ever happened. It is sweet of you to ask me to belong to your club. I’d love to come to your house to-morrow night, and I surely will. Thank you for asking me.”
Marjorie’s lovely face broke into smiles. “Thank you for saying you’ll come,” she nodded brightly. “The meeting is to begin at eight o’clock. Come over earlier if you can. I must hurry along now. It’s almost half-past one.”
“I’ll be there before eight,” assured Lucy. Her uncompromising manner had vanished, and her stolid features shone with renewed good will.
As Marjorie hurried toward the senior locker room to dispose of her hat before entering the study hall, she felt as though a sudden weight had been lifted from her shoulders. It was not only her own remorse at losing the letter which had troubled her. Lucy’s frosty attitude had belonged strictly to the embittered Observer. Having successfully dragged her out of that rut, Marjorie had deplored that she should be the one to shove poor Lucy back into it again. It was vastly comforting to her to find that the Observer had not risen again to dominate Lucy Warner.
CHAPTER VII – A STEP TOWARD POPULARITY
The next evening found the Deans’ living room in the possession of an ardent band of organizers, all bent on organization. A double row of chairs had been placed at one end of the pretty room, giving it a most business-like appearance. The long library table had been moved to the extreme opposite end, thus allowing sufficient free standing space before the rows of chairs for whomever should be chosen to conduct the meeting.
“It’s eight o’clock, girls,” announced Jerry Macy from the midst of a group comprising Muriel, Harriet, Susan and Esther Lind. As though in direct corroboration of her speech, the tall clock in the hall began a majestic intoning of the hour. “Much obliged for agreeing with me,” commented Jerry with a waggish nod toward the kindly-disposed timepiece. “It’s evident that I’m some little important person. Even the furniture in this house likes me.”
“Of course it does,” smiled Constance Stevens, who had approached the group just in time to hear Jerry’s droll remark. “How could it help itself?”
“Them’s my sentiments, too,” retorted Jerry modestly, “only I hated to praise myself too much. But forget it. I mean, give Jeremiah’s manifold virtues a rest. Let’s get busy. Ladies and no gentlemen, take your seats and the show will begin.” Jerry raised her voice in a stentorian call: “Our esteemed hostess, Marjorie Dean, will address this noisy throng as soon as she can make herself heard.”
“I wish you would do the talking, Jerry,” pleaded Marjorie. Her glance suddenly straying to the rows of chairs on which the girls were disposing themselves, she exclaimed: “We can’t begin the meeting yet. Mignon isn’t here. I knew someone was missing, but I couldn’t say who.”
“Oh, bother!” the ejaculation slipped out before Jerry could check it. “Well, sit down, all of you, just the same. Mignon will be here. She told Marjorie that she would.” Under her breath she muttered: “I hope it doesn’t take her all evening to get here.”
Hardly had Marjorie recognized the fact of Mignon La Salle’s absence, when the loud whir of the electric doorbell proclaimed her arrival.
“Good evening,” she greeted, as Marjorie ushered her into the hall. “I am sorry to be so late. An unexpected circumstance arose to delay me.” Mignon did not add, however, that the true cause of her delay was a letter from Rowena Farnham,