Marjorie, Leila and Vera could not help laughing at the names Jerry and Muriel had waggishly applied to the two sophs. Miss Carter’s speech had a habit of clicking itself from her lips with the mechanical precision of a phonograph. She had a wooden manner of carriage and walk which further added to the impression she gave of something mechanical. As for the name Muriel had picked for moon-eyed Miss Peyton, Muriel herself probably best understood thus far its fitness as applied to the tall, austere looking young woman.
“The traditions of Hamilton say nothing about the naming habit.” Leila shot a playful glance at Jerry.
“Er-r – well, it’s remembering the stranger within our gate in a kind of way,” Jerry defended. “Now that Muriel and I have named ’em specially we can remember ’em so much the better.”
“Such ignoble sentiments from a Hamilton P. G.! I am shocked!” Vera’s small hands went up in simulated displeasure.
“You’ll get over the shock if you don’t stop to think about it,” Jerry assured her. “You may even learn to admire the Harding-Macy classification.”
“It’s certainly time the Travelers got together,” Leila said, now more than half serious in her observation. “We must protect the Hall.”
“I am with you in that, Leila,” Marjorie observed, the light of sudden, unalterable purpose flaring strongly in her eyes. “We have Miss Remson as well as the girls here to think of. We’ve been through a siege of a house divided against itself once here. We must somehow not let that calamity overtake the Hall again.”
“How are we going to stop it, Marvelous Manager, with Gentleman Gus and the Ice Queen all ready to challenge each other to a duel?” quizzed Jerry. “I don’t say it can’t be done. I have great faith in you and your works, Bean.” She beamed patronizingly. “I merely ask you: How is it going to be done?”
“I wish I knew,” Marjorie laughingly confessed. “The Travelers will have to find a way to teach our freshies and sophs here to live up to the Hymn of Hamilton. That means we’ll have to teach them without letting them know they are being taught.”
Jerry looked impishly impressed. “What a simple pleasant task!” she exclaimed with pretended enthusiasm. “I should say we’d better cut out dessert, go right upstairs and plan for it. What’s dessert? Nothing but fresh cocoanut layer-cake and coffee gelatine slathered with whipped cream. Who cares for any such trifles?” Jerry waved an airy hand. She made no move to leave her chair, however.
“Only you. The rest of us have no longing for sweet stuff. But we are so kind as to keep you company while you eat,” Leila made bland assurance.
When the dessert was served the Irish girl deftly abstracted Jerry’s portion of cake and gelatine from under Jerry’s eyes and before the waitress had more than placed the dishes on the table. Up the line went the cake and gelatine until they reached Phil, who sat at the head of the table. Phil welcomed them with effusion and grew tantalizing. She gave a dozen flimsy reasons supposed to justify her claim to it. The table rang with laughter so spontaneous and good-natured more than one of the freshmen at the Hall felt a secret sympathy spring up within for the girls whom they had heard characterized by Doris Monroe’s most ardent supporters as “meddlers and hypocrites” and of having shown marked favoritism.
“If we were to make half the noise they are making Miss Remson would call us to account for it,” sourly observed Julia Peyton to Clara Carter. “I’ve spoken to her several times about the racket that goes on every evening in Miss Forbes’ room and in that Miss Dean’s room, too. It’s been worse since Miss Harding came to the Hall.”
“I know it,” Miss Carter nodded an eager red head. “Doris says she simply won’t allow Miss Harding to carry on in her room the way she does when she’s with her own crowd. She’s generally to be found on the campus with some of them, screaming and laughing. Doris met her and Miss Dean when she was with that awfully rich Miss Cairns this very afternoon. She said she felt so mortified at being obliged to speak to Miss Harding. She doesn’t speak to Miss Dean at all. She told me she had good reasons for ignoring her, but she preferred not to give them.”
“Humph.” Julia cast a jealous glance at her companion as the two sophomores rose to leave the table. Each girl was jealous of the condescending friendship which Doris Monroe had chosen to give her companion. She felt that she stood a trifle closer to Doris than the other.
Doris was fully aware of this state of affairs. When she had recovered from the sweetness of her first triumph at being “rushed” she made up her mind not to allow her soph and freshie admirers to fail in allegiance to her banner. She soon learned that her selfish air of indifference was one of her greatest assets. It added individuality to her beauty. It impressed her worshippers with a high idea of the value of her acquaintance.
She had inherited this trait of indifference from her mother, whose counterpart she was. She had, as Marjorie suspected, a strong inclination to honesty, one of her father’s finest traits. Thus she could not have pretended an indifference she did not feel. Since it was in her soul to be this she accepted the benefits she received from it with secret satisfaction. She was privately glad that she had no desire to be impulsive and readily responsive.
“I heard that the Miss Cairns you mentioned was expelled from Hamilton College,” Julia said disagreeably. She was desirous of over-topping Clara’s boastful reference to “Doris” and the intimacy it implied.
“Who told you?” Clara’s tone was challenging.
“I’ll not say who. I heard it, and it came to me directly from someone who knew,” Julia made mysterious response.
“I – I – haven’t heard any such story as that. I don’t believe it’s true. I’ll ask Doris. She’ll tell me,” Clara ended, tossing her flame-colored head.
“You’re very foolish to think of asking Doris,” disapproved Julia, her shaggy black brows drawing together. “She’ll set you down as impertinent. Even if she should know she wouldn’t tell you.” She gave a short, sarcastic laugh.
“I’m not afraid to ask her,” Clara doggedly persisted. “You may be, but I’m not.”
This was the beginning of an angry discussion between the two sophomores which lasted all the way upstairs and for several minutes after the door of their room was slammed behind them by Clara. So vigorously did she slam it that the sharp sound reached the bevy of Travelers as they came trooping gaily upstairs. Robin was singing softly for them an old plantation song: “Get you ready there’s a meetin’ here tonight,” and Phil was patting her hands in time to it.
“Bing, bang; who fired the first shot?” exclaimed Muriel.
“It did sound almost like a shot, didn’t it? I haven’t heard such a splendid imitation of banging a door since the Sans used to vent their outraged feelings on the doors,” chuckled Vera.
“That may have been the first shot fired in the Battle of Wayland Hall,” Jerry gigglingly surmised to Leila.
“Then it was wasted on us,” laughed Leila. “It will take more than the banging of a few doors to rouse our ire to the point of battle. Though make no mistake: ‘The air is full of knives,’ as we say in Ireland.”
In the room occupied by Clara Carter and Julia Peyton the air was indeed full of verbal knives. Both had voted for Doris Monroe for president of the sophomore class. Both had pledged themselves, with certain other girls at the Hall, to “boost” Doris and “down” Augusta Forbes. Now they were squabbling fiercely over the lovely, indifferent object of their girl devotion. In their jealous anger with each other they had blindly overlooked the old saying: “In union there is strength.”
CHAPTER