“But you do like the suggestion?”
“Immensely, John—and—thank you so much.” She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “Other people may fail me in emergencies, but it seems to me you are always there.”
Nor did Marjorie’s words express the real depth to which she was touched. If this scheme worked, she might be able to reach the girls whom she still felt to be outside of her influence. About Stella and Annie she was no longer concerned; they not only took basketball seriously, but athletics had really opened up a new life for them. They had told her that they were going regularly to the Y. W. C. A. for swimming instruction; their nights were so crowded now that there was little time for frivolity. Moreover, both girls were enlarging their circles of friends to include those more interested in the real things in life. It was almost as if they had received a fresh start; she felt satisfied that they would no longer drift.
She next thought of the school girls—Dot Williams and the twins; they were apparently headed in the right direction; but what about Queenie and Clara and Aggie? Of all the patrol these were the most pleasure-loving, the most flighty, and, with the exception of Queenie, the most irresponsible. Could she possibly hope to interest them in charitable work of any kind? Would they turn in disgust from contact with suffering in any form? Perhaps they might be bored by it, but at least they could not ridicule it. Only someone less than a human being could fail to be affected by a sight so pathetic as the one John had described.
The remainder of Marjorie’s vacation passed all too quickly; there were shopping expeditions, rides with her mother in her own little car, evenings with John at home. Almost before she realized it, she was back at college, sharing in pleasant little celebrations in her roommate’s honor.
She could not fight off an intangible sense of loneliness as she drove into the city to her first scout meeting of the new year. It was not so much that she missed Lily on this one particular occasion, but that she felt it to be symbolic of her days to come. In the eight years of her school life away from home, no one had been so close to her as this girl. At last she was to be separated from her; she sighed, but she would not alter the situation if she could. It was lovely for Lily to be so happy.
Her spirits rose, however, as she drew up to the settlement and found Queenie and Stella waiting for her just inside the door. Regardless of the fact that they wore neither hats nor coats, they both rushed out in the cold to greet her.
“You didn’t elope, then, did you, Miss Wilkinson?” demanded Queenie. “We were almost afraid you’d give us the slip!”
“Nothing like that, Queenie,” Marjorie replied laughingly. “How about you?”
“Her sweetie’s out of town,” Stella answered for her. “Slipped off without even coming across with a Christmas present.”