“Jacquette, I’m not willing you should resign.”
“Not willing! When you’ve always wished I wasn’t in it!”
“No; I’m not. If you break these vows like threads, because you’re angry with the girls, you make it that much easier for yourself to break other promises and be untrue to other obligations. No; I want you to promise me, here and now, ‘on your honour as a Sigma Pi’ not to say one word about resigning, to any of the girls—not even Louise—for at least a week, and not then until we have talked it over again.”
But instead of answering, Jacquette, who had risen to her feet in her amazement, put both hands to her head and wavered backward. “I’m so dizzy!” she said.
“Lie down on the couch. There; what is it?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, I guess—only my head aches! I’m—so—tired!” And the worn-out girl, completely unstrung, buried her face in the pillow and wept hysterically.
All that afternoon, Jacquette lay in a darkened room, resting and thinking. Just before dinner, Louise ran in to say how remorseful the girls had been as soon as they realised that they had hurt her.
“It came over them all at once that they had gone too far,” she said. “As soon as you left, they began to talk about the good work you had done for Sigma Pi, and, first we knew, it just turned into a meeting of praise for you. Mamie Coolidge and Flo Burton got one good lecture for the way they spoke about your aunt, and they’re dreadfully sorry.”
Jacquette felt her heart softening as she listened. The promise to Aunt Sula had been given, and, on the whole, she reflected, it was not a bad idea to wait a week before she acted.
As the evening passed, the telephone bell began to ring, and apologies and messages of love from the Sigma Pi girls came over the wire. It was hard to believe it, but Blanche Gross—proud, cold Blanche—was actually crying when she told Jacquette how sorry she was for what had happened at her house that day. There was news from Winifred, too. Some of the girls had been to inquire, and, though her father had all but shut the door in their faces, they had learned that she was not dangerously injured.