Georgia grinned sociably. “Bored,” she explained briefly. “Dying for excitement. Pining for novelty. Ask Madeline: she understands the feeling.”
“But she wouldn’t do this kind of thing,” protested Betty. “It’s so conspicuous. You needn’t have filled out your cards,—Madeline never would,—but you ought to go. And you certainly ought not to have an affair of your own that night.”
“Oh, tell her all about it,” put in Fluffy Dutton. “I never thought it was fair not to. She isn’t a faculty, but she’s a public institution. She ought to go into this with her eyes open. Besides when she’s heard the whole story, I’m sure she’ll stand for us. Mrs. Hinsdale couldn’t, of course. I only hope that prep. school-teacher Alice is going to ask for chaperon won’t be too curious or too conscientious. Fire away, Lucile.”
“Well——” Lucile paused. When you came to tell it to an outsider there wasn’t so much of a case as there had seemed to be when they discussed it hotly among their injured selves. “Well,” repeated Lucile, “to begin with, we’d all asked men, except Georgia, and she’d asked a prep. girl. And then Dickie Garrison—she’s house president—went and made rules against them. At least there had always been a rule against men, but everybody smuggled them in just the same and danced with them too, up in the gallery. But Dickie said to cut it out. We wouldn’t have cared, only we were sure she knew about our men and had cooked up this plot at the last minute just to spite us. We aren’t very popular with Dickie.”
“And then they ruled out asking prep. girls,” put in Georgia.
“And finally Dickie came to me,” Fluffy took up the tale of woe, “and said what would I think of the next house-meeting’s taking up the matter of lights after ten. That was just insulting—to say to me.”
“So then we decided to—to revolt,” ended the silent, straight-haired Dutton twin. “There’s no rule against giving an off-campus party, with men invited. Nobody ever had one before that we know of, because nobody ever thought of it. So we’ve just kept dark to avoid possible fusses.”
“And if we can only get the chaperon business settled, it’s all right,” added Lucile. “Isn’t it now, Betty? We’ve asked six Hilton House juniors to come too, and I’ve invited a lot of extra men.”
“Including a light-haired one for me,” explained Polly gaily, “according to the prophecy of the seeress Madeline.”
There was a strained little silence.