He was looking into Jacquette’s eyes as he spoke, and, in spite of a choking sensation in her throat, she smiled back at him bravely while she squeezed Aunt Sula’s hand. It was a comfort to feel that they all understood without words.
Before the morning was over, Jacquette slipped away for a talk with Louise, and when she came back, she went straight to Aunt Sula’s room.
“Tia,” she said, “don’t think I’m weakening, but Louise advises me not to take off my pin yet and not to say a word to any of the girls until they all come together again at the beginning of the fall term. There won’t be any sorority doings in vacation, anyway, and some of the girls have gone away for the summer already, and several more start to-day, and she says if I should tell the few that are left, they would begin to write letters to the others giving their versions of the matter, and my reasons wouldn’t be half as well understood as if I went to the first sorority meeting of the year myself, and explained it to them all at the same time.”
“That sounds sensible; perhaps she’s right,” Aunt Sula agreed. “How does she feel about what you’re going to do?”
“Oh, she’s the same trump as ever. At first she felt that I couldn’t do it—that I wouldn’t be able to stand the way the girls would act, but after that, she praised me until I felt foolish. But still——” Jacquette stopped as if sorry she had begun the sentence.
“Well?”
“She says, Tia, that if she were going to be here in high school another year, she’s afraid she couldn’t follow my lead. It would be more than she could bear to have all the Sigma Pi girls turn against her.”
There was a silence before Aunt Sula answered, “Never think, dear, that I don’t appreciate how hard it is.”
“And don’t you ever think I’m going back on it,” Jacquette cried, brushing away a few tears that had come in spite of her. “Will you explain to Grandpa why I put this on again? I—I’d rather not have to speak about it.” She walked to the mantel where the Sigma Pi pin had lain all night. “Tell him I’m just going to wear it until school begins. Louise says it would start questioning if I happened to meet any of the girls without having it on, and she thinks it will be so much better to tell them all together, myself.”
“Yes, I’ll tell him,” Aunt Sula promised, watching Jacquette’s tender glance at the little pin. “Does it really mean so much more to you than any other piece of jewellery?”