With her arm still encircling the now weeping girl, Marjorie made her way to the dressing-room. Jerry followed her within the next five minutes.
"The car's here," she announced briefly. "Hal and Laurie and the Crane are going home with us."
"Don't you cry, Constance," she soothed, patting the curly, golden head. "Mignon made a goose of herself to-night. The boys are all disgusted, and everyone knows she was making a fuss over nothing. You did exactly right, too, Marjorie, when you sent us all about our business. I'm sorry it happened, but you remember what I tell you, Mignon has hurt herself a great deal more than she has hurt you."
CHAPTER XIII
A PITCHED BATTLE
After the echoes of the dance had died away, basketball received a new impetus that brought it to the fore with a bound. With the renewed interest in the coming game was also noised about the report that "Miss Dean wasn't on the team any longer," and in some unknown fashion the news that she had been "asked" to resign had also gone the round of the study hall. The upper class girls were not particularly interested either in Marjorie or her affairs. She had not lived in Sanford long enough to become well-known to them, and as a rule the juniors and seniors left the bringing up of the freshmen to their sophomore sisters. The sophomores were too much absorbed in the progress of their own team to trouble themselves greatly over what was happening in the freshman organization. If Muriel or Mignon had resigned, then there would have been good cause for predicting an easy victory, for both girls were considered formidable opponents; but Marjorie was new material, untried and unproven.
It was in the freshman class, however, that comment ran rife. Since the night of the Weston dance the class had been almost equally divided. A little less than half the girls had either openly or by friendly smiles and nods declared in favor of Marjorie and her friends. The remaining members of the class, with a few neutral exceptions, were apparently devoted to the French girl and Muriel. Among their adherents they also counted Miss Merton, who took no pains to conceal her open dislike for Marjorie, and Marcia Arnold, who even went so far as to try to explain the situation to Miss Archer and was sternly reminded that the principal would take no part in the private differences of her girls unless they had something to do with breaking the rules of the school.
The days immediately preceding the game were not cheerful ones for Marjorie. She was still unhappy over her unjust dismissal from the team, and she wondered if it had been much talked of among her classmates. At home she had announced offhandedly her resignation from the team and her mother had asked no questions.