Mignon La Salle's face grew dark. She recognized the challenging note in the new girl's tone. Muriel, too, frowned. Susan Atwell sidled up to Mignon, Irma Linton looked distressed and Geraldine Macy calmly curious as to what would come next. It came in the way of a small tempest, for the French girl lost her temper over Marjorie's retort.
She stamped her foot in childish rage, saying vehemently: "She is a nobody, that Stevens person, and her family are vagabonds. You will make a great mistake if you choose her for your friend." Then, her rage receding as suddenly as it had come, she shrugged her shoulders deprecatingly. "Pardonnez moi." She bowed to Marjorie. "I spoke too strongly. It is not for me to choose Miss Dean's friends." Slipping her arm through Muriel's, she drew her ahead of the others. Susan Atwell took a hurried step forward and caught her other arm, leaving Marjorie to walk between Irma and Geraldine.
"Don't mind her," said Jerry, in a low voice. "She has it in for that Miss Stevens. She, the Stevens girl, did something, no one knows what, to make Mignon angry with her. Mignon says Miss Stevens talked about her and Muriel and Susan believed it, but Irma and I are not so silly."
Two blocks further on Marjorie bade good-bye to the five girls. She said it without enthusiasm. Their carping, quarrelsome attitude had taken all the pleasure from knowing them. She made mental exception in favor of Irma and Jerry. The gentleness of the one and the sturdy, outspoken manner of the other had impressed her favorably. But she was sorely disappointed in Muriel.
Should she tell her mother of the disagreeable ending of her first day? She decided not to do so. She would carry nothing save pleasant tales to her captain to-day. And so that night, when she entered the living-room and found her mother, in a becoming negligee, occupying the wide leather couch by the window, she saluted, like a dutiful soldier, and included in her report only the pleasant happenings of her first, never-to-be-forgotten day in Sanford High School.
CHAPTER VIII
STANDING BY HER COLORS
When Marjorie took her seat in the study hall the next morning, Muriel's greeting was as affable as it had been before the disagreement of the previous afternoon. She even went so far as to whisper, "Don't take Mignon too seriously. She is really dreadfully hurt over the unkind things Miss Stevens has said of her."