OPENLY AND ABOVEBOARD
When Jane awoke the next morning her first thought crystalized into a determination to interview Alicia Reynolds before the day was over. Speculating as to her best opportunity, she decided that it should be at the end of the morning recitations.
For once she would cut her recitation in Horace, which came the last hour in the morning. Alicia had no recitation at that hour. She would probably be in her room and alone. Jane also knew that Elsie Noble was occupied with a class at that time.
If looks could have killed, Jane and Adrienne would undoubtedly have been carried lifeless from the dining room that morning. At breakfast Elsie Noble's thin face wore an expression of spiteful resentment, which she made no effort to conceal. She was inwardly furious over her failure to rally the four Bridge Street freshmen to her standard. In consequence, she was more bitter against Jane and Adrienne than ever.
It further increased her rancor to hear Adrienne prattling with child-like innocence to Dorothy Martin of the coming dance.
Knowing very well what she was about, the little girl kept up a tantalizing chatter that was maddening in the extreme to the defeated plotter.
Unacquainted with the true state of affairs, Dorothy's genuinely expressed interest in the Bridge Street girls merely added fuel to the fire.
"Ah, but they are indeed delightful!" Adrienne wickedly assured, her black eyes dancing with mischief. "We shall be proud of our freshmen, when we escort them to the dance. Shall we not, Jeanne?"
"Yes, indeed. You must meet them, Dorothy. You'll like them all immensely. They're a splendid, high-principled lot of girls."
Signally amused by Adrienne's tactics, Jane could not resist this one little fling at her discomfited tablemate. She hoped it would serve to enlighten the latter in regard to at least one thing.