"But who told you the sophomores would be forbidden to play?" demanded candid Jerry.
"No one told us, silly," retorted Muriel, her color rising. "We simply said they would be surprised when they found themselves forbidden to play. 'When' may mean next week or next month, or next year or century, or any other time. We were only talking for their general edification."
"Then nobody actually said a word about it?" persisted Jerry. "You just made up all that stuff?"
"It didn't do any hurt," began Muriel. "We thought——"
"Don't be such a prig, Jerry," put in Mignon, impatiently. "It isn't half so wicked to play a joke on those stupid sophomores as it is to ask one's mother for money for a fountain pen, and then use the money for candy and ice cream."
There was a chorus of giggles from the girls, in which Jerry did not join. She was eyeing Mignon steadily. "See here, Mignon," she said with offended dignity. "I just want you to know that I told my mother about that money that very same night. I may have my faults, but I certainly don't tell things that aren't true." Jerry punctuated this pertinent speech with emphatic nods of her head, and, having said her say, walked on a little ahead of her friends, the picture of belligerence.
"Now, you've made Jerry angry, Mignon," laughed Susan Atwell.
Mignon merely lifted her thin shoulders. "I can't please every one. If I did, I should never please myself."
"I don't know what ails Jerry all of a sudden," commented Muriel to Marjorie. "She isn't usually so—so funny."
Again Marjorie kept her own counsel. She, alone, knew that the object of the rumor which Muriel and Mignon had started had failed. Ellen Seymour had gone frankly to headquarters with it, and Miss Archer had asked no questions. Marjorie wondered what these girls would say if they knew the truth. She did not like to criticize them, but were they truly honorable? For a moment she wished she had refused to play on the team with them. Muriel and Mignon, in particular, seemed so careless of other people's feelings.