"Do blondes change to brunettes in the twinkling of an eye?" laughed Leila, her blue eyes resting very kindly on Marjorie's pretty companion.
"They do not. Miss Walbert deserted me. She knew Miss Myers and Miss Stephens. She went with them." Marjorie made the explanation in a calm, level voice which did not invite present questioning.
"Then we can't count her in with this select aggregation," Vera said dryly. "Helen's gone, too, but her going was legitimate."
"Ah, well. We have gained one and lost one. Let us run off with our gain before someone happens along and coaxes her away from us. Might we not know her by name?" Leila turned to Marjorie with a wide ingratiating smile. The stranger was already regarding Leila with open amusement.
"You shall know her by name at once. You don't have to remind me to introduce her," retorted Marjorie. "I'll present you to her first of all. Miss Impatience, I mean Miss Harper, this is Miss Severn, of Baltimore." Marjorie again went through the ceremony of introduction, this time with smiles and whole-heartedness.
"We are thirteen in number, but who cares?" Leila announced. "Seven to one and six to the other car, Midget. As we aren't in the jitney business we won't come to blows over the one extra fare."
While they were disposing themselves in the two automobiles for the ride to Hamilton College, the sound of high-pitched voices announced the arrival on the scene of the Sans. Three of the juniors who had elected to meet them had driven their own cars to the station. Thus the illustrious Sans did not have to depend on the station's taxicabs.
While Leila would have liked to drive off in a hurry rather than encounter at such close range the girls she so heartily despised, she moved, instead, with the utmost deliberation. She was just climbing into the driver's seat when the small but noisy procession of young women came opposite to her car. Vera sat ready to start, her slender hands resting idly on the wheel as she waited for Leila's signal. The occupants of both cars, save for the freshman from Baltimore, were making a commendable effort to appear impersonal. Miss Severn, of Baltimore, was innocently interested in the newcomers from the fact that they were also students of Hamilton College.
Aside from considerable laughter, which sounded too pointed to be impersonal, the party of arriving juniors strolled past. Among the last came Leslie Cairns. She had insisted on walking with Elizabeth Walbert, greatly to Natalie's vexation. As she lounged past Leila's car she cast an insolent glance at the Irish girl. Leila returned it with an expression so inscrutably Celtic that Leslie hastily removed her gaze to Jerry, who sat beside Leila. She glared an intensity of ill-feeling at Jerry, which the latter longed to return, but did nothing worse than look blank.
Leila drove her car almost savagely around the station yard and out into the wide avenue. Sight of the Sans, particularly Leslie Cairns, had put her momentarily in a bad humor. Her virile Irish temperament forbade her to do other than love or hate with all her strength of being. She hated Leslie as energetically as she adored Marjorie.