Hazel placed a piece of roll and a match on the table to show the exact relative location.
“We hadn’t been there half an hour when there was a raid—”
“Hazel!” gasped Patricia, with horror in her eyes and voice.
“While the first excitement was going on in the front room the two fellows who were with us hustled us quietly out of the side door, into Pete’s car, and brought us home. And were we lucky!”
“You don’t know how lucky,” said Patricia gravely. “Did you see this morning’s paper?”
“No, don’t tell me it was reported!”
“It certainly was—”
“Were our names in?” demanded Hazel breathlessly.
“Not yours or Clarice’s, but several of the men’s, as well as Rose’s and her sister’s. Only for a kind Providence, you and Clarice might have been included,” said Patricia severely, gazing sternly at the white-faced girl opposite her.
“I’m through!” declared Hazel finally. “This is the last time I’ll break the college rules; and—”
“And what about Rose?” added Patricia. “She’s not good for you, Hazel. You haven’t the time or money to go with anyone like that; and her ideals and standards are different from ours.”
Hazel looked at her plate and was silent so long, that Patricia began to feel as if she had been too frank.
“You’re right, I guess,” she said finally. “I’ll give her up, even though I suppose she’ll think I am an awful quitter.”
“Good for you!” commended Patricia heartily, beginning again on her lunch.
“Do you suppose, Pat,” asked Hazel, after a short pause, “that the college authorities will hear that Clarice and I were mixed up in the affair?”
“I don’t imagine so; the others were all outsiders, weren’t they?”
“Yes, but, Pats; at Kleg’s I saw Norman Young.”
“Did he see you?” inquired Patricia sharply, recalling Jack’s impression of the blond youth.
“I don’t think so; but you never can tell. He was at a table half way down the room; and Pat, who do you suppose was with him?”
“Couldn’t guess.”
“Rhoda!”
“Our Rhoda?” repeated Patricia, unbelievingly.
Hazel nodded.
“Don’t let’s say anything about it to anybody,” proposed Patricia after a minute’s thought. “It’s awfully queer, but since we can’t understand it, there’s no object in creating talk and making things unpleasant for Rhoda.”
“No, of course not. I like Rhoda.”
“We all do, and I guess she needs her job. She said something one day about some one being dependent on her.”
“Do you suppose Norman goes with her?” continued Hazel, scraping up the last of her chocolate pudding.
“I haven’t any idea. He’s been out with Clarice quite often of late. I hope she doesn’t hear about Rhoda.”
“I don’t think she saw them last night, and I didn’t mention it. But Clarice wouldn’t care, as long as she had somebody to step out with. It’s a case of some boy with her, not any particular one,” replied Hazel, getting up and dropping her purse just outside the stall.
At the same moment a youth, leaving the next stall, picked up the purse and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” murmured Hazel, glancing up at the man.
To her amazement and distress, she looked full into the pale grey eyes of Norman Young.
“Going back to college?” he asked, looking first at Hazel and then at Patricia, who had just slipped out of her seat.
“Yes,” replied Patricia briefly, when Hazel did not respond.
“So am I. Guess I’ll walk along with you, if you don’t mind,” continued the boy, following them out of the shop.
Once on the street, he began to talk about the Greystone game.
“There’s a lot of money up on that game,” he remarked. “Not only among the students, but also among the townsfolk. Greystone has a player almost as famous as our Dunn, and the betting between the two factions is heavy. If Dunn were to be out of the game for any reason—”
“What would be likely to keep him out?” inquired Hazel sharply, while Patricia listened breathlessly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” laughed Norman; “probably nothing at all. I was only mentioning an improbable chance of such a thing. But, if he were, the Greystone supporters would be in line to win a heap of dough.”
“What kind of a place is Greystone?” asked Hazel.
“About the size of Granard. People of the town are just as loyal to their college as we are here. Maybe a little rougher crowd than ours.”
“Do you think Tut Miller has any chance of being put in for part of the game?” asked Patricia anxiously, the conversation of the morning recurring to her.
“How should I know?” questioned the boy, looking straight into Patricia’s eyes with a peculiar, twisted smile.
“You must know all the gridiron gossip,” asserted Hazel.
“Why should I? I’m neither coach nor manager.”
“No, but you watch practice a lot,” said Patricia before Hazel could reply.
“How do you know?” he inquired curtly.
Patricia laughed. “Did you ever know anything to be kept quiet in a college community?”
Norman looked searchingly at her for a moment, then replied gravely: “Yes, a few things.”
They had reached Clinton Hall by that time, and the girls left Norman at the steps with a hasty “We’re going in here. Goodbye.”
“Pat!” gasped Hazel, clasping the other girl’s arm in a frenzied grasp as they hurried along the hall toward their classroom. “Do you suppose he heard what we were talking about at lunch? He was evidently in the stall next to us, all the time.”
“I hardly think so. We were talking very low,” replied Patricia kindly, pressing Hazel’s cold fingers.
“He acted very funny, I thought,” chattered Hazel, trying to control the nervous chills which shook her.
“Pull yourself together,” ordered Patricia sternly. “If he did, we can’t change it by getting wrought up over it; but I think we’ll just take it for granted that he didn’t. Don’t worry,” she added, as they entered Professor Donnell’s classroom.
Patricia gave good advice to others, but during the class which followed, her mind dwelt persistently and anxiously on Norman’s reference to Jack’s possibly being out of the game. Had Joe some secret influence which might, at the last minute, result in Tut getting his chance? Did Norman have some inside information? Or was his supposition as casual as he tried to make it sound. Ought she to tell Jack, or would that tend to make things worse?
“Mademoiselle Randall,” Professor Donnell’s smooth voice broke into her reveries, “de quoi avons nous lu?”
“De foot balle,” replied Patricia promptly; then realized, too late, what an absurd reply she had