"Oh, I'd just adore having such a ravishing experience as that," said Lily Pearl Montgomery from the window seat, "but how can one have any thrilling experiences in a stupid old school! Now there are Polly and Peggy; think of all they could tell us if they only would. You girls must be fairly bursting with the most wonderful stories if you'd only come down off your pedestals and tell us. I think you're both too tight for words. And all those darling cadets' photographs in your room. You needn't try to make me believe that 'Faithfully yours, Bubbles' and 'Your chum, Ralph,' and 'For my Pilot, Captain Polly, Wheedles,' and 'For Peggy Stewart, Chatelaine, Happy,' don't mean a whole lot more."
"What's that?" asked Peggy, catching her name and looking up from her occupation. She caught Polly's eyes which had begun to snap. Polly had also been too busy to pay much attention at first, but she had heard the concluding sentences. She turned and looked at Lily with exactly the expression upon her sixteen-year-old face which had overspread it years before when the thirteen-year-old Polly had surprised the sentimental "Thusan Thwingle" exchanging osculatory favors with "one of thothe horrid boyths" in the basement of the high school at Montgentian. Then she said with repressed vehemence:
"I only wish our boys could have heard you say that. If you wouldn't come in for the running of your life my name's not Polly Howland. You'd suit some of the boys back yonder, but not our bunch. Of all the hot air! Stella, is your chafing-dish ready?"
Peggy had colored a rosy pink. She lacked Polly's experience with other girls.
Piqued by Polly's superior rebuff, Helen came to the inane Lily Pearl's support in a manner she knew would hit loyal Polly's most vulnerable spot:
"Look at Peggy's face! Look at Peggy's face! Which is the particular He, Peggy? Polly may be able to put up a big bluff, but your face is a dead giveaway."
"I don't think you would be able to understand if I told you. Middie's Haven and the 'bunch' are just a degree too high up for you to reach, I'm afraid, and there's no elevator in Wilmot Hall," answered Peggy quietly.
Polly laid down the things she was holding for Stella, dusted her hands of chocolate crumbs by lightly rubbing her fingers together, and walked quietly over to the couch. Helen looked somewhat alarmed and drew back among her pillows.
Polly, never uttering one word, bent over, swooped up Helen, pillows and all and holding her burden as she would have held a struggling baby, walked straight out of the room and down, the corridor to her own room, the shouts, screams and laughs of the girls following her. Helen was absolutely speechless at the audacity of the act. Bumping her door together by the only available means left her, since both arms were occupied, Polly then plumped Helen, now almost ready to resort to hysterical tears, upon a wooden shirt-waist box and placing herself in front of her, struck the attitude of a little red-headed goddess of vengeance as she said:
"Helen Doolittle, you may run me all you've a mind to—it doesn't mean a thing to me; I'm used to it; I've been teased all my life and I'm bomb-proof. But Peggy Stewart's made of different stuff. She hasn't been with girls very much, and never with a silly one before. Give her time and she'll understand them a good sight better than they'll ever understand her. And the boys she has known are not the kind who are ever likely to want to know you. So there's not much use wasting time explaining things. But I tell you just this, I won't stand for Peggy being run even a little bit, and you can circulate that bit of information broadcast. She's the finest ever, and the girl who can call her friend is in luck up to her ears. So understand: let her alone or reckon with me."