“I shall remain a commoner all the rest of my life unless you explain some of this thusness,” defied Marjorie threateningly with an anything but threatening expression. “How did you know Miss Susanna was coming here today, when I didn’t? How does Miss Remson happen to be here to meet her? You never made up that dandy Hamilton yell on the spur of the moment. Look at this room! I know you’ve been fixing at it ever since I went out to meet Miss Susanna. You’re all conspirators, the dearest, bestest, dandiest old plotters under the sun.
“You’re as guilty as they are.” She leveled an accusing finger at Miss Hamilton. “You didn’t know a thing about it last night. I guess a flock of little birds flew over to the Arms this morning. That would account for why you changed your mind.”
“What a terrible tirade,” commented Ronny in a shocked tone.
“Why don’t you introduce us to the royal party you’ve just called down?” inquired Jerry, her cheerful smile in evidence.
“Judging from the preparations you’ve made for her, I’d say you know her better than I,” was Marjorie’s laughing rejoinder. “Now I’m going to do something I’ve longed to do for two years. I’m going to introduce the Empress of Wayland Hall to the Lady of Hamilton Arms.”
Marjorie walked up to the make-shift throne and salaamed profoundly before it to its two occupants. Then she lifted one of Miss Remson’s hands and placed it in one of Miss Susanna’s. The crowd of laughing girls had drawn close to the trio as she did thus. “We love you both so much,” she said in her clear enunciation. “I know you are friends already.”
Approving applause went up from the more humble subjects. Their compact movement toward the throne had not been without an object. Marjorie felt herself suddenly seized and shoved into the throne’s vacant left-hand place before she could make the least resistance.
“Now will you be good?” Muriel Harding threatened the flushed giggling addition to royalty. “Don’t fail to notice that I am hanging over you with my most menacing air.”
“You look about as menacing as a peaceful sheep,” Lillian Wenderblatt promptly criticized.
“If you had said a lamb I shouldn’t have minded. I’m very certain I do not look like a sheep, peaceful or ferocious,” Muriel asserted with vast dignity.