Madeline, who never looked at bulletin-boards, did not get her note of summons, and Betty, who had taken hers as a friendly invitation to have tea with her friend, went over to the Hilton House alone and in the highest spirits. But Miss Ferris was not serving tea, and Dr. Hinsdale showed no intention of leaving them in peace to indulge in one of those long and delightful talks that Betty had so anticipated. Indeed it was he, with his coldest expression and his dryest tone, who introduced the subject of the initiation party and demanded to know why Madeline Ayres had neglected Miss Ferris’s summons. Betty had no trouble in explaining that to everybody’s satisfaction, but she longed desperately for Madeline’s support, as she listened to Dr. Hinsdale’s stern arraignment of the innocent little gathering.
“It’s not lady-like,” he asserted. “It’s aping the men. Hazing is a discredited practice anyhow. All decent colleges are dropping it. We certainly don’t want it here, where the aim of the faculty has always been to encourage the friendliest relations between classes. The members of the entering class always find the college life difficult at first. It’s quite unnecessary to add to their troubles.”
Betty listened with growing horror. What dreadful thing had she unwittingly been a party to? And yet, after all, could it have been so very dreadful? If Dr. Hinsdale had been there, would he have felt this way about it? A smile wavered on Betty’s lips at this thought. She looked at Miss Ferris, who smiled back at her.
“Say it, Betty,” encouraged Miss Ferris, and Betty began, explaining how Madeline had happened to think of the hazing, relating the absurdities that she and the rest had devised, dwelling on Ruth Howard’s clever impersonation and Josephine Boyd’s effective egg-scrambling. Gradually Dr. Hinsdale’s expression softened, and when she repeated Carline Dodge’s absurd retort, he laughed like a boy.
“Do you think it was so very dreadful?” Betty inquired anxiously, whereupon her judges exchanged glances and laughed again.
“There’s another thing,” Betty began timidly after a moment. “I don’t know as I should ever have thought of it myself, but it did certainly work that way.” And Betty explained Georgia Ames’s idea of the hazing-party as a promoter of good-fellowship. “It’s awfully hard to get acquainted with freshmen, you see,” she went on. “We have our own friends and we are all busy with our own affairs. But since that night we’ve been just as friendly. That one evening took the place of lots of calls and formal parties. We know now what the different ones can do. Of course,” Betty admitted truthfully, “it didn’t help Miss Butts any, unless it showed her that at Harding you’ve got to do your part, if you want a good time. She’s certainly been a little more agreeable since. But Ruth Howard now—why it would have been ages—oh, I mean months,” amended Betty blushingly, “before we should have known about her, unless Madeline had called for that speech.”
Again the judges exchanged amused glances, and Dr. Hinsdale cleared his throat. “Well, Miss Wales,” he said, “you’ve made your point, I think. You’ve found the legitimate purpose for a legitimate and distinctly feminine kind of hazing. And now, if Miss Ferris will excuse me, I have an engagement at my rooms.”
So Betty had her talk and her tea, after all, and went away loving Miss Ferris harder than ever. For Miss Ferris, by the mysterious process that brought all college news to her ken, had heard about Eleanor Watson and the Champion Blunderbuss, and she was looking out for Eleanor, who, she was sure from a number of little things she had noticed and pieced together, was now quite capable of looking out for herself. This confirmation of her own theory encouraged Betty vastly, and she was able to feel a little more charitable toward the Champion, who, as Miss Ferris had pointed out, was really the one most to be pitied.