CHAPTER III – A VERANDA ENCOUNTER

It lacked but a few minutes of eleven o’clock when the serenading party said goodnight to Signor Baretti and trooped off toward the campus. The usually taciturn Italian had surprised and touched them by the impulsive story of his most tragic hour. He had afterward played host to his light-hearted guests with the true grace of the Latin. No one came to the inn for cheer after they entered in that evening, so they had the place quite to themselves. After a feast of the coveted peach ice cream and cakes, the obliging orchestra tuned up again at Giuseppe’s earnest request. Robin sang Shubert’s “Serenade” and “Appear Love at Thy Window.” Phyllis played Raff’s “Cavatina” and one of Brahm’s “Hungarian Dances.” Blanche Scott sang “Asleep in the Deep,” simply to prove she had a masculine voice when she chose to use it.

“We’ll come and make music for you again sometime,” promised kind-hearted Phyllis as they left their beaming host.

“I thank you. An’ you forget you say you come an’ play, I tell you ’bout it sometime you come here to eat,” he warned the party as they were leaving.

“Talk about truth being stranger than fiction, what do you think of Giuseppe’s story?” Jerry exclaimed as soon as they were well away from the inn. “Imagine how one would feel to meet one’s long-lost brother just as one was getting ready to commit suicide!”

“One half of the world doesn’t know how the other half lives,” Ronny said with a shake of her fair head.

“To see Giuseppe today, successful and well-to-do, one finds it hard to visualize him as the poor, starved, despondent Italian boy who cried his heart out on the doorstep.” Vera’s tones vibrated with sympathy. The Italian’s story had impressed her deeply.

The girls discussed it soberly as they wended a leisurely way across the campus. Even care-free Muriel, who seldom liked to take life seriously, remarked with becoming earnestness that it was such stories which made one realize one’s own benefits.

“Be on hand tomorrow night at eight-thirty sharp,” was Phyllis’s parting injunction to the Wayland Hall girls as the Silvertonites left them to go on to their own house. “We have three fair ladies to sing to and we don’t want to slight any of them.”

“I think we ought to get up some entertainments of our own this year. I never stopped to realize before how few clubs and college societies Hamilton has. There’s only the ‘Silver Pen’, – one has to have high literary ability to make that, – the ‘Twelfth Night Club’ and the ‘Fortnightly Debating Society.’ We haven’t a single sorority,” Vera declared with regret.

“Miss Remson told me once of a sorority that Hamilton used to have called the ‘Round Table.’ It flourished for many years. Then all of a sudden she heard no more of it. She said Hamilton was very different even ten years ago from now. There was little automobiling and more sociability among the campus houses. There were house plays going on every week and different kinds of entertainments in which almost everyone joined.”

“That’s the way college ought to be,” commended Vera. “Even if Hamilton hasn’t yet won back to those palmy days, we had more fellowship here last year than the year before. Why, during Leila’s and my freshman year here we were seldom invited anywhere. We hardly knew Helen Trent until late in the year. Nella and Selma, Martha Merrick and Rosalind Black were our only friends.”

“And now we are to lose Selma.” Leila heaved an audible sigh. She had already informed the girls of Selma’s approaching marriage to a young naval officer.

“Did Selma know last year she was not going to finish college?” asked Muriel. “If I had gone through three years of my college course I wouldn’t give up the last and most important year just to be married.”

“That is because you know nothing about love,” teased Ronny.

“Do you?” challenged Muriel.

“I do not. I have a good deal more sentiment than you have though,” retorted Ronny. “I can appreciate Selma’s sacrifice at the shrine of love.”

“So could I if I knew more about it,” Muriel flung back.

“Precisely what I said to you. So glad you agree with me,” chuckled Ronny.

“I don’t agree with you at all. I meant if I knew more about what you were pleased to call ‘Selma’s sacrifice,’ not love.” Muriel’s emphasis of the last word proclaimed her disdain of the tender passion.

“Hear the geese converse,” commented Leila. “Let me tell you both that Selma had to lose either college or her fiancé for two years. He was ordered to the Philippines to take charge of a naval station on one of the islands. They were to have been married anyway as soon as she was graduated from Hamilton. As it was she chose to go with him. So Selma gained a husband and lost her seniorship and we lost Selma. I shall miss her, for a finer girl never lived.”

“Nella will miss her most of all,” Vera said quickly. “We must try to make it up to Nella by taking her around with us a lot.”

They had by this time reached the Hall. Girl-like they lingered on the steps, enjoying the light night breeze that had sprung up in the last hour. Marjorie’s old friend, the chimes, had rung out the stroke of eleven before they reached the Hall. College having not yet opened officially, they claimed the privilege of keeping a little later hours.

As they loitered outside, conversing in low tones, the front door opened and a girl stepped out on the veranda. She uttered a faint sound of surprise at sight of the group of girls. She made a half movement as though to retreat into the house. Then, her face turned away from them, she hurried across the veranda and down the steps.

Though the veranda light was not switched on, the girls had seen her face plainly. To four of them she was known.

“Who was she and what ailed her?” was Muriel’s light question. “She acted as though she were afraid we might eat her up.”

“That was Miss Sayres, President Matthews’ private secretary,” answered Leila in a peculiar tone. “As to what ailed her, she did not expect to see us and she was not pleased. We have an old Irish proverb: ‘When a man runs from you be sure his feet are at odds with his conscience.’”

CHAPTER IV – A CONGENIAL PAIR

“Well, here we are at the same old stand again.” Leslie Cairns yawned, stretched upward her kimono-clad arms and clasped them behind her head. Lounging opposite her, in a deep, Sleepy-Hollow chair, Natalie Weyman, also in a negligee, scanned her friend’s face with some anxiety.

“Les, do you or do you not intend to try to make a new stand this year for our rights? I think the way we were treated last year after that basket-ball affair was simply outrageous. I don’t mean by Miss Dean and her crowd, I mean by girls we had lunched and done plenty of favors for.”

“If you are talking about the freshies they never were to be depended upon from the first. Bess Walbert stood by us, of course. So did a lot of Alston Terrace kids. She did good work for us there.”

“Every reason why she should have,” Natalie tartly pointed out. She was still jealous of Leslie’s friendship with Elizabeth Walbert. “You did enough for her. She certainly will not win the soph presidency, no matter how much you may root for her. She was awfully unpopular with her class before college closed. I know that to be a fact.”

“Why is it that you have to go up in the air like a sky rocket every time I mention Bess Walbert’s name?” Leslie scowled her impatience. “You wouldn’t give that poor kid credit for anything clever she had done, no matter how wonderful it was.”

“Humph! I have yet to learn of anything wonderful she ever did or ever will do,” sneered Natalie. “I am not going to quarrel with you, Leslie, about her.” Natalie modified her tone. “She isn’t worth it. You think I am awfully jealous of her. I am not. I don’t like her because she is so untruthful.”

“Why don’t you say she is a liar and be done with it?” ‘So untruthful!’ Leslie mimicked. “That sounds like Bean and her crowd.” Displeased with Natalie for decrying Elizabeth Walbert, Leslie took revenge by mimicking her chum. She knew nothing cut Natalie more than to be mimicked.

“All right. I will say it. Bess Walbert is a liar and you will find it out, too, before you are done with her. Besides, she is treacherous. If you were to turn her down for any reason, she wouldn’t care what she said about you on the campus. I have watched her a good deal, Les. She’s like this. She will take a little bit of truth for a foundation and then build up something from it that’s entirely a lie. If she would stick to facts; but she doesn’t.”

“She has always been square enough with me,” Leslie insisted.

“Because you have made a fuss over her,” was the instant explanation. “She knows you are at the head of the Sans and she has taken precious good care to keep in with you. She cares for no one but herself.”

“Oh, nonsense! That’s what you always said about Lola Elster. I’ve never had any rows with Lola. We’re as good friends today as ever.”

“Still Lola dropped you the minute she grew chummy with Alida Burton,” Natalie reminded. “Lola was just ungrateful, though. She has more honor in a minute than Bess will ever have. She isn’t a talker or a mischief-maker. She never thinks of much but having a good time. She hardly ever says anything gossipy about anyone.”

“I thought you didn’t like Lola?” Leslie smiled in her slow fashion.

“I don’t,” came frankly. “Of the two evils, I prefer her to Bess. My advice to you is not to be too pleasant with Bess until you see what her position here at Hamilton is going to be. I tell you she isn’t well liked. You can keep her at arm’s length, if you begin that way, without making her sore. If you baby her and then drop her, look out!” Natalie shook a prophetic finger at Leslie.

“We can’t afford to take any chances this year, Les. With all the things we have done that would put us in line for being expelled, we have managed by sheer good luck to slide from under. If we hadn’t worked like sixty last spring term to make up for the time we lost fooling with basket-ball we wouldn’t be seniors now. I don’t want any conditions to work off this year.”

“Neither do I. Don’t intend to have ’em. I begin to believe you may be right about keeping Bess in her place.” Natalie’s evident earnestness had made some impression on her companion.

“I know I am,” Natalie emphasized with lofty dignity. “Are you sure she doesn’t know anything about that hazing business? She made a remark to Harriet Stephens last spring that sounded as though she knew all about it.”

“Well, she does not, unless someone of the Sans besides you or I has told her of it.” Leslie sat up straight in her chair, looking rather worried. “I must pump her and find out what she knows. If she does know of it, then we have a traitor in the camp. Mark me, I’ll throw any girl out of the club who has babbled that affair. Didn’t we doubly swear, afterward, never to tell it to a soul while we were at Hamilton?”

“Hard to say who told Bess,” shrugged Natalie. “Certainly it was not I.”

“No; you’re excepted. I said that.” Leslie’s assurance was bored. She was tired of hearing Natalie extol her own loyalty. It was an everyday citation. “That hazing stunt of ours doesn’t worry me half so much as that trick we put over on Trotty Remson. I am always afraid that Laura will flivver someday and the whole thing will come to light. If it happens after I leave Hamilton, I don’t care. All I care about is getting through. If I keep on the soft side of my father he is going to let me help run his business. That’s my dream. But I have to be graduated with honors, if there are any I can pull down. At least I must stick it out here for my diploma.”

“What would your father do if you flunked this year in any way?”

“He would disown me. I mean that. I have money of my own; lots of it. That part of it wouldn’t feaze me. But my father is the only person on earth I really have any respect for. I’d never get over it; never.”

Leslie’s loose features showed a tightened intensity utterly foreign to them. Her hands took hold on the chair arms with a grip which revealed something of the nervous emotion the fell contingency inspired in her.

The two girls had arrived on the seven o’clock train from the north that evening. They had stopped at the Lotus for dinner and had reached the hall shortly before the beginning of the serenade. Leslie had been Natalie’s guest at the Weymans’ camp in the Adirondacks. Thus the two had come on to college together instead of accepting Dulcie Vale’s invitation to journey from New York City to Hamilton in the Vales’ private car, as they had done the three previous years. Since the hazing party on St. Valentine’s night, Leslie and Dulcie had not been on specially good terms. Leslie was still peeved with Dulcie for not having locked the back door of the untenanted house as she had been ordered to do. Had she obeyed orders the Sans would not have been put to panic-stricken flight by unknown invaders. While those who had come to Marjorie’s rescue might have hung about the outside of the house, they could not have found entrance easy with both back and front doors properly locked.

“I don’t know what is the matter with me tonight.” Leslie rose and commenced a restless walk up and down the room, hands clasped behind her back. “That music upset me, I guess. I wonder who the singers were. Serenading Bean and her gang. Humph! Nobody ever serenaded us that I can recall. I suppose Beanie arrived in all her glory this afternoon, hence those yowlers under her window tonight.”

“They really sang beautifully. Whoever played the violin was a fine musician. I never heard a better rendition of ‘How Fair Art Thou.’” Fond of music, Natalie was forced to admit the high quality of the performance, even though the serenade had been in honor of the girl of whom she had always been so jealous.

“I don’t care much for music unless it is rag-time or musical comedy stuff. Sentimental songs get on my nerves. I hate that priggish old ‘Hymn to Hamilton.’ I hope Laura got out of here without being seen.” Leslie went back to the subject still uppermost in her mind. “It was risking something to send for her to come over here, but I was anxious to see her and find out if anything had happened this summer detrimental to us. I didn’t feel like meeting her along the road tonight.”

“Oh, I don’t believe anyone saw her,” reassured Natalie. “It was after eleven when she left here. The house was quiet as could be. I noticed it when I went out in the hall before she left to see if the coast was clear. Not more than half the girls who belong here are back yet. Bean and her crowd had gone to bed, I presume. You wouldn’t catch such angels as they even making a dent in the ten-thirty rule.”

“That’s so.” Leslie made one more trip up and down the room, then resumed the chair in which she had been sitting. “Well, I’ll take it for granted that Sayres made a clean get-away. One thing about her, she will stand by us as long as she is paid for it. Besides, she would get into more trouble than we if the truth were known. That’s where we have the advantage of her. She has to protect herself as well as us. What I have always been afraid of is this: If Remson and old Doctor Know-it-all ever came to an understanding he would go to quizzing Sayres. If she lost her nerve, for he is a terror when he’s angry, she might flivver.”

“Don’t cross bridges until you come to them,” counseled Natalie. She was beginning to see the value of assuming the role of comforter to Leslie. One thing Natalie had determined. She would strain a point to be first with Leslie during their senior year. She had importuned Leslie to visit her for the purpose of regaining her old footing. She and Leslie had spent a fairly congenial month together in the Adirondacks. Now Natalie intended to hold the ground she had gained against all comers.

“I’m not going to. I shall forget last year, so far as I can. I certainly spent enough money and didn’t gain a thing. Our best plan is to go on as we did last spring. If I see a good opportunity to bother Bean and her devoted beanstalks, I shall not let it pass me by. I am not going to take any more risks, though. If I manage to live down those I’ve taken, I’ll do well.”

“I know I wouldn’t raise a hand to help a freshie this year,” Natalie declared with a positive pucker of her small mouth. “Think of the way we rushed the greedy ingrates! Then they wouldn’t stand up for us during that basket-ball trouble.”

“Put all that down to profit and loss.” Leslie had emerged from the brief spasm of dread which invariably visited her after seeing Laura Sayres. “We had the wrong kind of girls to deal with. There were more digs and prigs in that class than eligibles. That’s why we lost. I am all done with that sort of thing. If I can’t be as popular as Bean,” Leslie’s intonation was bitterly sarcastic, “I can be a good deal more exclusive. As it is, I expect to have all I can do to keep the Sans in line. Dulcie Vale has an idea that she ought to run the club. Give her a chance and she’d run it into the ground. She has as much sense as a peacock. She can fan her feathers and squawk.”

Natalie laughed outright at this. It was so exactly descriptive of Dulcie.

Leslie looked well pleased with herself. She thoroughly enjoyed saying smart things which made people laugh. It was a sore cross to her that after three years of the hardest striving she had not attained the kind of popularity at Hamilton which she craved. Yet she could not see wherein she was to blame.

Gifted with a keen sense of humor, she had tricks of expression so original in themselves that she might have easily gained a reputation as the funniest girl in college. Had good humor radiated her peculiarly rugged features she would have been that rarity, an ugly beauty. Due to her proficiency at golf and tennis, she was of most symmetrical figure. She was particularly fastidious as to dress, and made a smart appearance. Having so much that was in her favor, she was hopelessly hampered by self.