“Why, Augusta!” exclaimed Elizabeth with a rising inflection. “What on earth is——”
“Miss Forbes, if you please,” cut in Gussie sharply. “I wish you to know that I think you the rudest, most discourteous person in the whole world. You slighted me last night and I resented it. I resent it still. I was invited to the frolic by a really fine girl; I am sorry she did not invite me first. All my chums had a splendid time. Thanks to you, I didn’t. They did not wish me to accept your invitation, for they don’t approve of you. I stood up for you and accepted. Of course, then, I did not go near them. I depended on you to introduce me to other girls, and you paid hardly any attention to me after we were inside the gym. You——”
“Don’t be so silly,” pettishly interrupted Elizabeth. “I——”
“Truth is never silly,” Gussie flashed back. She had said her say in low enough tones so that they were attracting no attention from the two girls at the other end of the lavatory. “Now forget that you ever spoke to me. I’ve forgotten already that I ever met you. Good morning.”
Gussie marched out of the lavatory, head held high, leaving Elizabeth red-faced and angry. This was the beginning of war between the two. Not since Leslie Cairns had scored her for her treachery that day on the campus had Elizabeth been thus arraigned. She spitefully resolved to make Gussie a mark for ridicule at Hamilton. She could do it. Was she not a junior? As for Augusta, she was nothing but a big, stupid freshie!
Elizabeth had awakened that morning quite out of sorts. Her eagerness to cling to Alida and Lola at the frolic had lost her much of the evening’s pleasure. The two seniors had declared the frolic “an awful bore.” They had danced but little, preferring to sit back and criticize. Though they had called her to join them early in the evening and had been more friendly than for a long time, toward the close of the frolic they simply drifted away from her. So cleverly did they manage she was not aware until afterward that they had deliberately dropped her. It hurt her vanity, but not her feelings.
To discover that Gussie had decamped did not add to her peace of mind. She determined not to attend any more college entertainments. They were stupid and silly. Anything Elizabeth disapproved usually went under this ban. Her head aching from a repast of two chocolate eclairs and a nougat bar, eaten after she came from the frolic, Elizabeth decided to cut her classes that day. She would take two headache powders, sleep until noon, and go for a long ride in the afternoon. All this she planned after her tilt with Augusta.
Shortly before two o’clock that afternoon she went to the garage for her car and was soon speeding toward the town of Hamilton. Her object was a trip to Breton Hill, a village twenty miles south of Hamilton. First she planned to stop in Hamilton and eat a light luncheon.
Wavering between the Lotus and the Ivy, she finally went to the Ivy. Twenty minutes after she entered the tea shop, a girl drove by in a roadster. Her glance resting on a familiar blue and buff car, she smiled sourly, drove on for perhaps a block, then came back and parked her roadster in front of the Ivy. Leaving her car in slow, deliberate fashion, she sauntered up the wide stone walk and into the shop. One swift survey of the room showed her Elizabeth Walbert at a side table. She stood for a moment, her eyes narrowing, then walked boldly to where Elizabeth sat and took the vacant chair opposite her.
The latter looked up from her plate and encountered Leslie Cairns’ eyes. Elizabeth was genuinely surprised. Leslie pretended to be.