Leslie sniffed audible contempt at this information. “Let me say this: Dulcie herself mentioned your name, or rather she screamed it out at the top of her voice the other night. The rest of us said nothing. I made the charges against Dulcie and mentioned no names.”
“I wish I had been there.” A wolfish light flashed into the wide, babyish blue eyes. “It must have been quite a party. Leslie,” Elizabeth decided that the time had come to speak for herself, “you said once that I couldn’t be a member of the Sans because there was no vacancy; that the club must be kept to the number of eighteen. There is a vacancy now. The club has only seventeen members. Why can’t I fill that vacancy and become the eighteenth member? I don’t mind because it will be only for the rest of this year. I shall count it an honor to have been a Sans even that long. I will certainly make a more loyal Sans than Dulcie was.”
Leslie drew a long breath. The wished-for moment had come. She was in fine fettle to deliver to the ambitious climber the “turn-down” she had earned.
“Why can’t you become a member of the Sans?” she asked, then drew back her head and indulged in soundless laughter. “Do you think it would make you very happy to join us?”
“You may better believe it,” Elizabeth made flippant reply. More seriously, she added: “You know how my heart has been set upon it from the very first.”
“Yes, I know. The fact of the matter is,” Leslie measured each word, “there is one great drawback to your joining.”
“If it is about money, I am sure my father has as much as the fathers of the other members,” cut in Elizabeth. “Our social position in New York is——”
“All that has nothing to do with the drawback I mentioned.” Leslie waved away Elizabeth’s attempt at defending her position. They were not more than half way across the campus, but Leslie was tired of keeping up the suspense of the moment. Her head ached violently. She was so utterly disgusted with the other girl she could have cheerfully pummeled her.
“Then I don’t quite understand——” began Elizabeth.
“You’re going to—at once. We dropped one girl from the Sans for being a liar and a gossip. What would be the use in filling her place with another liar and gossip. That’s the drawback. It applies strictly to you.”