Miss Atterbury got up slowly.
“Well!” she said, impressively, to Miss Thayer, “I’m sorry if that young man is much of a friend of yours, for we have got to make an example of him. I suppose you know him well enough to invite him out here Monday afternoon?—for you’ve got to do it,” she added, with calm decision.
Miss Thayer said she thought she might venture on that simple act of courtesy, though she could not quite understand why Miss Atterbury was so anxious to see him since she disapproved of him so entirely; to which that young woman replied that she wished to see him once, so that she might never see him again, and that the next day she would explain her plans, in which she expected their hearty co-operation.
Mr. Jack Newbold had just comfortably installed himself in the 1.50 B. and A. train, when it occurred to him that he might possibly have made a mistake as to the time Miss Thayer expected him. He pulled out the note which he had received from her, and read it again.
“My Dear Mr. Newbold: I have been so interested in what you have written about athletics in girls’ colleges! I saw the article in your paper and knew immediately by the initials that it was your work. Ever since seeing it I have been wishing to redeem my promise to have you come out here and see our college.
“All the girls are anxious to see you. I hope you won’t mind receiving a great deal of attention! You know how enthusiastic and unconventional college girls are, and you are of the greatest interest to us just now. Miss Atterbury, a charming girl, is especially eager to meet you. Don’t be too flattered! But we shall all be delighted to see the man who has so ably written up girls’ colleges, and unless I hear from you to the contrary, shall look for you out Monday afternoon by the 1.50 train.
“Of course I shall expect you to take dinner and go to the concert in the evening. I tell you this now, so you can wear just the right ‘dress’—men are so ridiculously particular about their clothes!
“Very cordially yours,
“Eleanor Thayer.”
Mr. Jack Newbold was not a particularly vain youth, but he had a slight feeling of satisfaction on perusing that note which made him settle himself even more comfortably in his seat and resign himself cheerfully to the short journey.
“Had no idea that article would make such a sensation,” he was saying to himself, “and I’m glad she expects me by this train. Of course she will bring her trap to the station for me. I believe the college is quite a little distance from the town. Nice little trap—she drives well for a girl, I remember.” And then he fell to wondering whether he had selected just the right things to wear. “Girls are so deucedly critical,” he soliloquized, and it had been rather hard to decide on just what would be in good taste for an afternoon call and would still do without change for the concert in the evening, and he rather complimented himself on his judicious selection, and was assuring himself that the particular shade of his gloves had not been a mistake, when he found that he was at the station.