"I'm not in the least interested in your friends. All I want them to do is to mind their own business about this accident. If you say they will, I look to you to keep your word. If you will accept a money settlement, say what you want and I will hand you a check for that amount." Leslie made this offer with cool insolence.
"Please don't!" Katherine was ready to cry with weakness and hurt pride. "I—won't you look upon the whole affair as though it had not happened? Money is the last thing to be thought of."
"Very well; since that is your way of looking at it." Leslie rose. She experienced a malicious satisfaction in having thus "taken a rise out of the beggar." Her point gained, she was anxious to be gone. "Hope you will soon be as well as ever. If you need anything, let me know. I must hurry along. I have a very important dinner engagement this evening. Goodbye."
She made a hasty exit, without offering her hand in farewell. Katherine lay back among her pillows with a long sigh of sheer relief. She felt that she could not have endured her caller two minutes longer without telling her frankly how utterly she detested her.
Marjorie and Jerry coming cheerily in upon her soon after classes, she confided to them the news of Leslie's call.
"The idea," sniffed Jerry. "Wish I had been here. I'd have told Miss Bully Cairns where she gets off at. How does she know but that President Matthews knows about it already? There were several freshies in her car. No doubt they were all her sort or they wouldn't have been with her. Look at the freshies in Miss Stephens' car. They were the first on the scene and were awfully sweet to us. What would hinder any one of them from 'stirring things up' if they disapproved of the way Miss Cairns acted? I mean the way she took her time about coming back after she ran Katherine down. She had better make the rounds of the college and tell everyone to keep quiet about it."
"She knows she is entirely in the wrong," said Marjorie sternly. "Further, she has not told the truth. I am sure I would have heard a horn if she had sounded one. She was certainly exceeding the speed limit, and she did not keep her car to the proper side of the road. So long as Katherine wishes the matter dropped, her wish is law in the matter."