Constance raised her head. In her blue dress, with the moonlight playing upon her soft, childish features and golden hair, Marjorie thought she looked even younger than she had appeared at the eventful Hallowe’en party. Then, poverty and unhappiness had marred her beauty. Now, it had grown with every good gift that had been showered upon her.
“Marjorie,” she continued very solemnly: “I have never said a word to you before, but—” with a slight pause, “I hope you will marry Hal some day. I am sure he loves you as dearly as Laurie loves me.” Constance spoke with the sincerity of the truly happy. She had found love. “You have always been friendly with Hal, but I understand you don’t love him now. I have watched you both, and I know he cares a great deal more for you than you for him. I don’t mean I wish you would fall in love with Hal tomorrow or next week or even next year, but, someday, I hope you will.”
“I don’t wish to fall in love with Hal or anybody else.” Marjorie shook her head with a decision that loosened a curl from the thick, wavy masses of hair drawn over her ears. She frowned down the remote possibility of such a catastrophe. “It has always been different with you and Laurie than with Hal and me. You two were really lovers as far back as your sophomore year at Sanford High. Hal and I have been just good friends, and so far as I am concerned, we are going to stay just good friends.”
CHAPTER II—THE RETURN OF THE “TRAVELERS”
“And is it yourselves, and no other? Where was I, may I ask, that I was not at the station to meet you?”
Leila Harper stood at the top of the front steps of Wayland Hall just long enough to thus interrogate the party of four girls who were advancing toward her. With a jubilant Irish whoop she made a sudden, forceful descent of the steps and landed among them with open arms.
“And I am that glad to see you!” she exclaimed. “Here I have been, melancholy as a roofless banshee, for two whole days. Vera, may the moon defend her and the sun lend her grace, was to be here today. Still no sign of our respected and regretted Midget!”
“Maybe we aren’t glad to see you, Leila Greatheart!” Marjorie was embracing Leila with a fervor that bespoke her affection for the genial Irish girl. “I would have wired you we were coming, but I hadn’t heard from you for three weeks, neglectful person, so I didn’t know where you were.”
“Now has it really been three weeks?” Leila inquired ingeniously, then laughed. “I’m guilty, Beauty. Forgive your Celtic friend. I am always meaning to write letters. It’s not lack of intention, but lack of execution that troubles me. But where is Ronny?” Making the round of greeting as she talked, Leila had now missed Veronica Lynne.
“Ronny hasn’t come from the West yet.” Muriel replied to the question. “This is the first year she hasn’t traveled to Hamilton with us. My, how I have missed her! We used to have such lovely squabbles on the train, all the way to college. It made things so pleasant and lively.” Muriel’s brown eyes danced as she forwarded this naive admission.