"I'd rather shout than drawl my words as if I were too lazy to say them," retaliated Elsie wrathfully.
"All right, shout then and let everybody in the Hall know your business," was Maizie's tranquil response.
"If you came here to fuss, Elsie, then we can get along very well without you. If you expect to go around with us, you'll have to behave like a human being."
Marian's cool insolence had an instantly subduing effect on her belligerent relative. She knew that Marian was quite capable of dropping her, then and there.
"I don't know what happened about the room," she said sulkily, but in a decidedly lower key. "I came here at nine o'clock in the morning. Mrs. Weatherbee sent the maid with me to the room. That Stearns girl said I must have made a mistake. I knew that she wasn't exactly pleased. She said hardly a word to me. She went out and stayed out until just before luncheon. Then she came in for about ten minutes and went downstairs. I didn't see her again."
"She was probably running around the campus telling her friends about it," lazily surmised Maizie. "I'll bet she was all at sea. Wonder if she went to Weatherbee with a string of complaints."
"What happened after that?" queried Marian impatiently.
"What happened?" Elsie pitched the question in a shrill angry key. "Enough, I should say. I unpacked part of my things, then finished reading a dandy mystery story I'd begun on the train. About four o'clock Mrs. Weatherbee sailed in here and made me give up the room."
"What did she say?" was the concerted question.
"She said there'd been a misunderstanding about Miss Allen's coming back to the Hall. That Miss Allen was not to blame and so must have her own room. I said I wouldn't give it up and she said it was not for me, but her, to decide that. She said I could have the other room if I wanted it. If I didn't then she had nothing else to offer me. I said I'd go to the registrar about it. She just looked superior and said, 'As you please.' I knew I was beaten. If I went to the registrar, then Mrs. Weatherbee would have a chance to show her that letter. If I gave in, very likely she'd let the whole thing drop. As long as she'd offered me another room here, I thought it was best to take it."