While she had been deeply annoyed at the artist’s note, she grew angry at the temerity of the theatrical manager and promptly tore the letter into shreds. How she wished that she had never allowed herself to be dragged into that foolish beauty contest. Afterward Leila had candidly owned to Marjorie her part in the affair. While Marjorie had been obliged to laugh at the Irish girl’s clever move against the Sans, she had wondered whether she really liked Leila. Instead of being pleased over her triumph, she was distinctly put out about it.
“I never saw you so near to being really downright cross as you’ve been since that old beauty contest,” observed Jerry one afternoon in late October, as Marjorie entered the room, a frown between her brows, a tired droop to her pretty mouth.
“I feel like being downright cross,” emphasized Marjorie, accompanying the last three words with three energetic slams of her book on chemistry on the table. “I wish this popularity business were in Kamchatka. I thought I would like to take a walk around the campus today, all by myself, and think about what I would write this evening. I have to write a theme for poetics to be handed in tomorrow morning. I wasn’t allowed a minute to myself. There are some awfully nice girls here, but I wasn’t anxious for company today. I haven’t the least idea what I shall write and I wanted to save time by choosing my subject this afternoon.”
“Go and ask Ronny for a subject,” calmly advised Jerry. “She loves poems, poets and poetics in general. She is in her room writing to her father. She fired me out, but you may have better luck. She may have finished writing. It seems a long while since she inhospitably requested me to make myself scarce. My, but you are sympathetic!” Marjorie was already half way through the door, regardless of Jerry’s plaint.
“Come in,” called Ronny, in response to Marjorie’s two measured raps. “Oh, Marjorie, I was just coming to see you. I have a piece of news for you.”
“Come along,” invited Marjorie, “but first give me a subject for a theme for poetics. I need one in a hurry. Jerry said you were authority on the subject.”
“I am amazed at her charity,” chuckled Ronny, “after the way I shooed her away from my door.”
“She mentioned it,” returned Marjorie significantly, whereupon both girls laughed.
“Let me see,” pondered Ronny. “Why don’t you write on the genius Poe as above that of any other American poet? Illustrate by quoting from other poets and then comparing the excerpts with his work. Read his essay on poetry tonight before you begin to write. It will give you inspiration. I brought a five volume set of Poe from home. Here’s the volume containing the essay you need.”
Ronny took from a near-by book-case the desired volume and handed it to Marjorie.