Louise Markham joined them at the corner, and, a block or two farther on, Marquis excused himself to walk with a boy who had met them at one of the cross-streets.
“We needn’t feel jealous,” Louise said, with a smile, as Marquis left them. “It isn’t because he prefers Clarence Mullen’s company to ours.”
“What made him go, then?” Jacquette asked.
“Oh, business! The Beta Sigs want to pledge that little fellow, and two or three other fraternities are after him, too, so Quis couldn’t lose this chance of courting him.”
“But, Louise, that boy has such a queer, sly-looking face! I thought so the minute I saw him. Is he nice?”
Louise shrugged her shoulders good-naturedly. “His father has loads of money and a ball-room in his house.”
“You don’t mean to say that Quis’s fraternity would choose a boy for those things?”
There was a scandalised note in Jacquette’s voice, and Louise laughed.
“Not really,” she said. “I don’t actually know anything against that Mullen boy, but somehow, I feel just as you do about him—creepy—and I can’t help thinking that his father’s financial position may have a little to do with all the fraternities rushing him so hard. Maybe that’s unjust. I don’t know—but I do know, Jacquette, that when a girl can look as much like a flower as you do in that pink dress, she has no business ever to wear plain things.”
“Oh, Louise!” Jacquette protested, looking more like a flower than ever, as they turned into the school entrance, and walked up to the office to register.