“Not fairy stories,” sneered Dulcie. “I’d be satisfied to tell the truth about you deceitful things. It would more than run you out of Hamilton.”
“You couldn’t tell the truth to save your life,” retorted Leslie with a caustic contempt which hit Dulcie harder than anything else Leslie had said to her.
“I—I—think——” Dulcie struggled with her emotions, then suddenly burst into hysterical sobs. Her arm against her face to shut her distorted features from sight of her accusers, she stumbled to the door, groping for the knob with her free hand. An instant and she had gone, too thoroughly humiliated to slam the door after her. The sounds of her weeping could be faintly heard by the others until her own door closed behind her.
“Gone!” Joan Myers sighed exaggerated relief.
“Yes; and broken,” announced Leslie Cairns with cruel satisfaction.
“Oh, I don’t know,” differed Margaret Wayne. She had not forgotten Dulcie’s assertion as to what Leslie had said of her and Loretta. “Dulc had spunk enough to answer you back to the very last. I don’t see that——”
“No, you don’t see. Well, I do. I say that Dulcie Vale left here just now utterly crushed,” argued Leslie with stress. “You are peeved, Margaret, because of what she claimed I said of you and Retta. She lied.”
“Certainly, Dulcie lied,” supported Natalie. “Do you believe that I, Leslie’s best friend, would say hateful things about her? Yet Dulc said I had. Didn’t Les warn you not to pay any attention to what she said? We knew she would try to make trouble among the Sans the minute we called her down.”
“We did, indeed.” Leslie made a movement of her head that betokened Dulcie’s utter hopelessness.
“I didn’t say I believed what Dulcie said,” half-apologized Margaret. In her heart she did not trust Leslie, however. It was like her to make just such remarks about any of the Sans if in bad humor.