Marjorie Dean, College Junior

It brought forth exclamatory comment from all, once each had acquainted herself with its contents.

“No wonder you didn’t leave word where you were going. Did you have a nice time?” Jerry’s chubby features registered her pleasure of the honor accorded her room-mate.

“Yes; I had a beautiful time. I was worried because I couldn’t speak of going to any of you. Miss Susanna gave me permission to tell you eight, but no others.” Marjorie recounted her visit in detail. “I wish she would invite the rest of you to Hamilton Arms. It is a beautiful house inside. I only saw the hall and library, but they were magnificent.”

“Don’t weep, Marvelous Manager.” Ronny had noted Marjorie’s wistful expression. “Through your miraculous machinations we shall all be parading about Hamilton Arms in the near future.”

“I certainly hope so,” was the fervent response.

For a little the bevy of girls discussed Marjorie’s news. All were elated over the pleasure which had come to her. Her generous thought of the peculiar old lady on May Day of the previous year had touched them.

“She hasn’t asked you yet if you hung that basket, has she?” queried Lucy.

“How could she possibly suspect me of hanging it?” laughed Marjorie.

“Because it was like you. It carried your atmosphere. Some day she will suddenly notice that and ask you about the basket,” Lucy sagely prophesied. “She seems to be a shrewd old person.”

“She is.” Marjorie smiled at the candid criticism. She wondered if Miss Susanna had not been in her youth a trifle like Lucy.

“Now for what Helen and I saw and heard this afternoon,” declared Jerry gleefully. The first interest in Marjorie’s visit to Hamilton Arms had abated.

“Oh, a horrible tale I have to tell,
Of the terrible fate that once befell
A couple of students who resided
In the very same neighborhood that I did,”

chanted Helen. “You tell it, Jeremiah. You can make it funnier than I can.”

“Helen and I started out with the new car as proudly as you please this afternoon,” began Jerry with a reminiscent chuckle. “We hadn’t gone much further than Hamilton Arms when whiz, bing, buzz! Along came that Miss Walbert in her blue and buff car and nearly bumped into us. She came up from behind and her car just missed scraping against Helen’s. Leslie Cairns was with her. We never said a word, but I heard Miss Cairns raise her voice. I think she gave Miss Walbert a call down.”

“There was no excuse for her, except that she never seems to pay any particular attention to anyone’s car but her own,” put in Helen. “I have heard complaint of her from I don’t remember how many girls who own cars. Occasionally you will find a girl who can’t learn to drive a car. She belongs in that class. Excuse me for butting in. Proceed, Jeremiah.”

“That’s all of the prologue,” Jerry continued. “Now comes the first act. We went on to town, drove around a little, did our errands, had ice cream at the Lotus and started back highly pleased with ourselves. You know that place just before you leave the town where the turn into Hamilton Highway is made? There is a grocery store and a garage on one side of the road and a hotel on the other. Just before we came to that point Miss Walbert and her car whizzed by us again. She took that corner with a lurch. When we struck the place a minute later we saw something had happened. She had actually scraped the side of one of those taxis that run between town and the college. It was coming from the college, I suppose. Anyway, Miss Cairns and she were both out of their car and so was the taxi driver. Maybe he wasn’t giving those two a call down!”

Jerry and Helen exchanged joyful smiles at the recollection of the reckless couple’s discomfiture.

“Helen drove very slowly past them. We wanted to hear what the man was saying,” Jerry continued. “He was laying down the law to them to beat the band. We heard Leslie Cairns say, ‘Do you know to whom you are talking?’ He shouted out, ‘Yes; to a simpleton of a girl who don’t know no more about drivin’ than a goose. I seen you drive your own car, lady, an’ I never had no trouble with you. Your friend, there, is the limit. You’re runnin’ chances of landin’ in the hospital or worse when you go ridin’ with her.’ Leslie Cairns was furious. I could tell that by her expression. Miss Walbert fairly shrieked something at him. She was mad as hops, too. We had passed them by that time so we couldn’t catch what she was saying. There was quite a crowd around them, mostly men and youngsters.”

“That must be the man Robin and I rode with the other day,” Marjorie said. “Is he short, with a red face and quite gray hair?”

“Yes; that’s the man. How did you know which one it was?” Jerry showed surprise.

“He had a near collision with Miss Walbert that day.” Marjorie related the incident.

“It is a shame!” Leila’s face had darkened as she listened to both girls. “I hope Leslie Cairns takes her in hand. She’s the very one to cause a bad accident and then home go our cars. She is such a poor driver. She bowls along the road without regard for man or beast. She has a good car which will presently be in the ditch.”

“Do you think President Matthews would ban cars if a Hamilton girl were to ditch her car or met with serious accident to herself?” Vera asked reflectively.

“Hard to say, Midget. It would depend upon the seriousness of the accident. Suppose a girl were to ditch her car and be killed. It would be horrifying. I doubt whether we would be allowed our cars after any such accident.”

“Grant nothing like that ever happens.” Lucy Warner gave a slight shudder. “I shall never forget the day Kathie was hurt.”

“None of us who were with her that day are likely ever to forget it. Miss Cairns escaped easily considering the way she was driving. She ought to be the very one to tell that Miss Walbert a few things not in the automobile guide,” declared Jerry. “She certainly did not appear at advantage this afternoon.”

CHAPTER XII – A TRAITOR IN CAMP

Leslie Cairns’ opinion of the matter coincided with Jerry’s, though the latter could not know it. To become involved in a roadside argument with an irate taxicab driver did not appeal to her in the least. She was not half so angry with him, however, as with Elizabeth Walbert. She blamed the latter for the whole thing. For several minutes after Helen and Jerry had driven by them, Elizabeth and the driver continued to quarrel.

“How much do you want for the damage you say we have done your cab?” Leslie had impatiently inquired of the man. “Cut it out, Bess, and get back to your car,” she had ordered in the next breath. “Let me settle this business.”

A momentary hesitation and Elizabeth had obeyed. She could not afford to antagonize Leslie, at present. She had an axe of her own yet to be ground.

“I oughtta have twenty-five dollars. It ain’t my car. Repairin’ comes high.”

“Very good. Here is your money. Wait a minute.” Leslie had extracted the sum from her handbag. With it came a small pad of blank paper and a fountain pen. Then and there she obtained not only a receipt for the money but a statement of release as well. She was well aware that it would not cost twenty-five dollars to repaint the side of the cab scraped by their car, but she preferred the matter summarily closed.

Returning to the car she had said shortly: “I’ll take the wheel.” Elizabeth had resumed the driver’s seat. Nor had she made any move toward relinquishing it.

“You heard what I said, Bess,” she had sharply rebuked. “Either that, or you and I are on the outs for good. You let me drive that car and show you a few things you need badly to know about driving.” Leslie’s lowering face and tense utterance had had its effect. Elizabeth had allowed her to drive back to Hamilton but had sulked all the way to the campus.

At the garage she had unbent a little and inquired how much Leslie had paid the driver. “I’ll return it to you next week,” she had promised.

“Suit yourself about that. I’m in no hurry. I took it upon myself to settle with the idiot. It wouldn’t worry me if you never paid it. I thought it best to pacify him. I don’t care to have him reporting us to Matthews as he threatened to do.” This had been Leslie’s mind on the subject.

“I don’t believe he would ever go near Doctor Matthews. Still you couldn’t afford to risk being reported,” Elizabeth had retorted with special emphasis on the “you.”

To this Leslie had vouchsafed no reply. She had merely stared at her companion in a most disconcerting fashion and walked off and left her. She was thoroughly nettled with Elizabeth for her lack of gratitude. Natalie was right about her it seemed. She was also wondering where the ungrateful sophomore had obtained certain information which she apparently possessed. No one beyond her seven intimates among the Sans knew that she had been reprimanded by President Matthews for the accident to Katherine Langly. To the other members of the club she had intimated that she had adjusted the matter quietly with Katherine.

That evening, while Jerry was recounting to her chums what she and Helen had heard of the altercation between the cab driver and the two girls, Leslie was having a confidential talk with Natalie Weyman. She had gone straight from the garage to her room, eaten dinner at the Hall and asked Natalie to come to her room after dinner.

“Nat, you are right about Bess. She is no good,” Leslie began, dropping into a chair opposite that of her friend. Briefly narrating the happening of the afternoon, she repeated the remark Elizabeth had made to her at the garage. “What would you draw from that?” she asked.

“Someone has been talking.” Natalie compressed her lips in a tight line. “You are sure you never told her yourself?”

“Positively, no. I have never babbled my private affairs to Bess, or Lola either. Only the old crowd were told the facts of that trouble. We have a traitor in the camp and I know who it is.” Leslie’s eyes narrowed with sinister significance. “It’s Dulcie. I am going to find out quietly what all she has been saying about me and to whom she has been saying it. I’m sure she told Bess about the summons. That isn’t so serious. I could overlook that, although I don’t like it. It is the other things she may have told. That’s what worries me. She and I have been on the outs since that Valentine masquerade last year. She hardly ever comes to my room. I am not sorry. I never got along well with Dulcie. I never trusted her.”

“Dulcie ought to know better than tell all she knows to that Walbert creature,” Natalie made indignant return. “Why, Les, suppose she were foolish enough to tell her about that high tribunal stunt?” Natalie drew a sharp breath of consternation. “Dulcie knows the rights of the Remson mix-up, too.”

“Dulcie knows too much. So do some of the other girls. If I had it to do over again, I would not tell anyone but you how I put over a stunt. Why did we haze Bean? Simply because she reported me to Matthews after Langly had agreed to drop it. The girls were all in on the hazing, so not one of them would be safe if they told it.”

“The Remson affair would do you the most harm if it got out,” Natalie said decidedly. “It is contemptible in Dulcie to gossip about you after all the favors you have done her. You’ve lent her money over and over again. You know she never pays it back if she can slide out of it.”

Leslie made an indifferent gesture of assent. “She owes me over two hundred dollars now. I lent it to her during her freshie year. She paid up what she borrowed of me last year, but she never said a word about the other. Dulcie has nerve, Nat; pure, unadulterated nerve. She can’t bear me lately because I run the Sans to suit myself. I always ran the club and she knows that. Last year she decided that she would like to run it herself. I sat down on her every time she tried it. She deliberately left the back door of that house unlocked the night we hazed Bean. I told her to see to it. She was edgeways at me. She never went near the door. You know what happened.”

“Dulcie will have to be told a few plain truths.” Natalie frowned displeased anxiety. The news of Dulcie’s defection was rather alarming.

“She is going to hear them from me, but not yet. I shall catch her dead to rights before I have things out with her. I’ve made up my mind just how I am going to do it, provided the rest of the Sans stand by me. It will be to their interest to do so. I mean, with their support, I can give her precisely what she deserves.”

“I’ll stand by you. Joan will, too. She is down on Dulcie for some reason or other. They haven’t been on speaking terms for a week. I asked Joan what the trouble was between them. She said Dulcie made her weary and she didn’t care whether she ever spoke to her again or not. That was all I could get out of her.”