PLANNING FOR THE MASQUERADE
On the morning following Mignon's visit to Miss Archer's office, Marjorie was unpleasantly startled to hear Miss Merton call out stridently just after opening exercises, "Miss Dean, report to Miss Archer, at once."
A battery of curious eyes was turned in speculation upon Marjorie as she walked the length of the study hall, outwardly composed, but inwardly resentful at Miss Merton's tone, which, to her sensitive ears, bordered on insult.
"Good morning, Miss Archer; Miss Merton said you wished to see me," began Marjorie, quietly, as she entered the outer office where Miss Archer stood, reading a letter which her secretary had just handed to her for inspection.
"Yes," returned the principal, briefly; "come with me." She led the way to her inner office and, motioning to Marjorie to precede her, stepped inside and closed the door.
"Sit here, Miss Dean," she directed, indicating a chair at one side of her desk. Then, seating herself, she turned to the young girl, and said, with kind gravity: "I sent for you this morning because I wish to speak frankly to you of one of your classmates. I shall expect you to be absolutely frank, too. Very grave complaints have been brought to me by Miss La Salle concerning Constance Stevens. She insists that Miss Stevens is guilty of the theft of her bracelet, which disappeared on the night of the dance given by the young men of Weston High School. As I left the gymnasium some time before the party was over, I knew nothing of this, and no word of it was brought to me afterward.
"Miss La Salle also states that Miss Stevens has been wearing a gold pin, in the form of a butterfly, which belongs to you and which you advertised as lost. She declares that she is positive that Miss Stevens found the pin and made no effort to return it to you, and that you are shielding her from the effects of her own wrongdoing by allowing her to continue to wear it. This latter seems to be a rather far-fetched accusation, but Miss La Salle is so insistent in the matter that I was going to settle that part of it, at least, by asking you where and when you found your pin and whether you gave Miss Stevens permission to wear it.
"This may seem to you, my dear, like direct interference in your personal affairs, but it is necessary that this matter be cleared up at once. Miss Stevens cannot afford to allow such detrimental reports to be circulated about her through the school."
Miss Archer looked expectantly at Marjorie, who was strangely silent, two signals of distress in her brown eyes.
"I cannot answer your questions, Miss Archer," she answered at last, her clear tones a trifle unsteady.
The principal regarded her with amazed displeasure. Accustomed to having the deciding voice in all matters pertaining to her position as head of the school, she could not endure being crossed, particularly by a pupil.
"I must insist upon an answer, Miss Dean. Your silence is unfair, not only to Miss Stevens, but to the school. If Miss Stevens is innocent of any wrongdoing, now is the time to clear her name of suspicion. If she is guilty, by telling the true circumstances concerning your pin, you are doing the school justice. A person who deliberately appropriates that which does not belong to him or to her is a menace to the community in which he or she lives, and should be removed from it. Our school is our community. It must be kept free from those who are a detriment to it," concluded Miss Archer, her mouth settling into lines of obstinate firmness.
The distress in Marjorie's face deepened. "I am sorry, Miss Archer, but I can tell you nothing. Please don't think me stubborn and obstinate. I can't help it. I—I have nothing to say."
"I have explained to you the necessity for perfect frankness on your part, and you have refused to comply with my demand," reproved the principal. "I am deeply disappointed in you, Miss Dean. I looked for better things from you. The affair will have to stand as it is until Miss Stevens returns. I am sorry that you will not assist me in clearing it up." She made a gesture of dismissal. "That is all, I believe, this morning. You may return to the study hall."
Without a word Marjorie rose and left the room, her eyes full of tears, her proud spirit hurt to the quick. The icy reproach in the principal's words was, indeed, hard to bear, and all for a girl who had proved herself unworthy of friendship. Yet she could not help feeling a swift pang of pity for Constance. How dreadful it would be for her when she returned to Sanford and to school!
But Constance seemed in no hurry to return. Midyear, with its burden of examinations, its feverish hopes and fears, came and went. Then followed a three days' vacation, and the new term began with a great readjusting of programs and classes. Marjorie passed her state examinations in American history and physiology, and decided upon physical geography and English history in their places, as both were term studies. She entered upon her second term's work with little enthusiasm, however. The disagreeable, almost tragic events following the holidays had left a shadow on her freshman days, that had promised so much.
February came, smiled deceitfully, froze vindictively, threatened a little, then thawed and froze again, as his next-door neighbor, March, whisked resentfully down upon him, hurried him out of the running for a whole year, and blustered about it for two weeks afterward. The swiftly passing days, however, brought no word or sign concerning the absent Constance, and, try as she might, Marjorie could not forget her.
Mignon La Salle, though greatly disappointed over the failure of her plan to humiliate the musician's daughter, was craftily biding her time, resolved to strike the moment Constance returned to school.
"Mignon certainly intends to make things interesting for Constance," declared Jerry to Marjorie, as the French girl switched haughtily by them one mild afternoon in late March on the way home from school.
"Why do you say that?" asked Marjorie, quickly. "Have you heard anything new?"
"Nothing startling," replied Jerry. "You know Irma and Susan Atwell used to be best friends until they began chumming with Mignon and Muriel. Well, Susan is awfully angry with Mignon for something she said about her, so she has dropped her, and Muriel, too. She went over to Irma's house the other night and cried and said she was sorry she'd been so silly. She wanted to be friends with Irma again."
"What did Irma say?" asked Marjorie, breathlessly.
"Oh, she made up with her, then and there," informed Jerry with fine disgust. "I'd have kept her waiting a while. She deserved it. She told Irma she hoped I'd forgive her, but I didn't make any rash promises."
"What a hard-hearted person you are," smiled Marjorie. "But, tell me, Jerry, what did you hear about Constance?"
"Oh, yes. That's what I started out to tell you. Mignon told Susan last week that she was only waiting for Constance to come back to school to take her to Miss Archer and accuse her of stealing her bracelet."
"How dreadful!" deplored Marjorie. "Perhaps Constance won't come back."
"Yes, she will. She wrote a note to Miss Archer when she went away saying that she had to go to New York City on business, but would return to school as soon as possible. Marcia Arnold saw the note, and told Mignon. Mignon told Susan before they had their fuss. Susan told Irma, and she told me. Almost an endless chain, but not quite," finished Jerry with a cheerful grin.
"I should say so," returned Marjorie, in an abstracted tone. Her thoughts were on the absent girl. She wondered why Constance had gone to New York so suddenly and taken little Charlie with her. She wished she had asked Mr. Stevens more about it.
"See here, Marjorie," Jerry's blunt tones interrupted her musing. "What's the trouble between you and Constance? I know something is the matter, but I'd like most awfully well to know what it is."
"I can't answer your question, Jerry," said Marjorie in a low tone. "Would you care if I—if we didn't talk about Constance?"
"Not a bit," rejoined the stout girl good-naturedly. "Never tell anything you don't want to tell. We'll change the subject. Let's talk about the Sanford High dance. What character do you intend to represent?"
"Is Sanford High going to give a party?" Marjorie voiced her surprise.
"Of course. The Sanford High girls give one every spring, and the Weston boys give their dance in the fall."
"When is it to be?"
"Not until after Easter, and this year it's going to be a lot of fun. We are to have a fairy-tale masquerade."
"I never heard of any such thing before."
"Neither did I," went on Jerry, "that is, until yesterday. The committee just decided upon it. You see, the girls always give a fancy dress party, but not always a masquerade. This year a freshman who was on the committee proposed that it would be a good stunt to make everyone dress as a character in some old fairy tale. The rest of the committee liked the idea, so you had better get busy and hunt up your costume."
"But how did you happen to know so much about it?"
"Well," Jerry looked impressive. "I was on the committee and I happened to be the freshman who proposed it."
"You clever girl!" exclaimed Marjorie, admiringly. "I think that is a splendid idea. I wonder what I could go as?"
"Snow White," suggested Jerry, eyeing her critically. "I can get seven of the Weston boys to do the Seven Little Dwarfs and follow you around."
"But Snow White had 'a skin like snow, cheeks as red as blood and hair as black as ebony,'" quoted Marjorie. "I don't answer to that description."
"You are pretty, and so was she, and that's all you need to care," returned Jerry, calmly. "Besides, the Seven Dwarfs will be great. Will you do it?"
"All right," acquiesced Marjorie. "What are you going as?"
"One of the 'Fat Friars,'" giggled Jerry. "Don't you remember, 'Four Fat Friars Fanning a Fainting Fly'? I'm going to ask three more stout girls to join me. We'll wear long, gray frocks, get bald-headed wigs and carry palmleaf fans. I don't know anyone who would be willing to go as the 'Fainting Fly,' so we'll have to do without him, I guess."
"You funny girl!" laughed Marjorie. "But how will everyone know who is who after the unmasking? There will be so many queens and princesses and kings and courtiers."
"We thought of that and we are going to put up a notice for everyone to carry cards. Some of the characters will be easy to guess without cards."
"I must tell mother about it as soon as I go home and ask her to help me plan Snow White's costume. When will we receive our invitations?"
"We only send printed invitations to the boys. Every girl in high school is invited, of course. The invitations will be sent to the boys next week, and the Sanford girls will be notified at once, so as to give them plenty of time to plan their costumes."
"I wish it were to be next week," murmured Marjorie, after she had left Jerry and turned into her own street. "Everything has been gloomy and horrid for so long. I'd love to have a good time again, just to see how it seemed."
She reflected rather sadly that the disagreeable happenings of her freshman year had outweighed her good times. She had entered Sanford High School with the resolve to like every girl there, and with the hope that the girls would like her, but in some way everything had gone wrong. Perhaps she had been to blame. She had been warned in the beginning not to champion Constance Stevens. Yet the very girls who had warned her could never have been her intimate friends. Her ideals and theirs, if they had ideals, were too widely separated. No; she had been right in standing up for Constance. The fault lay with the latter. It was she who had betrayed friendship.
Determined to go no further into this most painful of subjects, Marjorie resolutely centered her thoughts upon the coming party. The moment she reached home she ran upstairs to her room. Sitting down on the floor before her bookcase, she drew out a thick red volume of Grimms' Fairy Tales and read the story of Snow White. To her joy she discovered that the colored frontispiece was a picture of Snow White begging admittance at the home of the Seven Little Dwarfs.
"I'll ask mother to make me a high-waisted white gown like this one, with pale blue trimmings and a big blue sash," she planned. "I'll wear my pale blue slippers, the ones that have no heels, and white silk stockings. Thank goodness, my hair is curly. I'll let it hang loose on my shoulders. Of course, it isn't as black as ebony; but then, I can't help that." With the book still in her hand she ran down the stairs, two at a time, to tell her mother.
What mother is not interested in her daughter's school fun and parties? Mrs. Dean entered at once into the planning of the costume and suggested that Snow White's cards be made in the shape of little apples, one half colored red, the other half green, and her name written diagonally across the surface of the apple.
Marjorie hailed the idea with delight. "May I buy the water-color paper for the apples to-morrow, Captain?"
"Yes," replied Mrs. Dean. "You ought to begin them at once. What is Constance going to wear? She hasn't been here for a long time. Poor child, I suppose her family keep her busy. Why not ask her to dinner some night this week, Marjorie?"
Marjorie flushed hotly. Her mother, who was busily engaged with an intricate bit of embroidery, did not notice the added color in her daughter's face.
"Constance is in New York visiting her aunt," returned Marjorie. "She has been there for a long time. Charlie is with her. I don't know when they will be home."
Something in her daughter's tone caused Mrs. Dean to glance quickly up from her work. Marjorie was staring out of the window with unseeing eyes.
"Constance has hurt Marjorie's feelings by not writing to her," was Mrs. Dean's thought. Aloud she said: "Did you know before Constance went to New York that she intended going?"
"No; she didn't tell me."
Marjorie volunteered no further information, and Mrs. Dean refrained from asking questions. She thought she understood her daughter's reticence. Marjorie naturally felt that Constance was neglectful and a little ungrateful, but would not say so.
"I wish I could tell mother all about it," ruminated Marjorie, as she went slowly upstairs to replace the Grimms'. "I can't bear to do it. I suppose I shall some day, but it seems too dreadful to say, 'Mother, Constance is a thief. She stole my butterfly pin. That's why she doesn't come here any more.' It's like a disagreeable dream, and I wish I could wake up some day to find that it's all been a dreadful mistake."
But light is sure to follow darkness, and the loyal little lieutenant's awakening was nearer at hand than she could foresee.