And now the day of convalescence had dawned. She was able not only to sit up, but to take brief strolls about her room. Her faithful Captain had just brought her word that Jerry and the girls would be with her that afternoon. What a lot they would have to talk about! Marjorie lay luxuriously back among her pillows and smilingly patted a fat letter from Mary Raymond. “How I wish you could be here, too, Lieutenant,” she murmured. “We need you to help us with our good time. Connie’s coming over early to help Captain dress me in my wonderful new pink negligee. It has ruffles and ruffles. I wish you could see it, Mary.”
“You are only playing invalid,” laughingly accused Constance Stevens. It was a little after one o’clock. She and Mrs. Dean had just finished arraying Marjorie in the half-fitted pink silk negligee that had been one of Captain’s cheer-up gifts to her. “I never before saw you look so pretty, Marjorie,” she declared, as she stepped back to view the effect. “You ought always to wear your hair down your back in long curls.”
“Just imagine how I’d look. And I so nearly a senior, too. Connie, do you suppose Mignon will come to my party?” Marjorie asked with sudden irrelevance.
“When I invited her to it she said she’d come,” returned Constance. “You can’t tell much about her, though. The day before Miss Archer forbade basket ball I saw Rowena stop her and walk into school with her. I thought it rather queer. She had said so much against Rowena after that night at Riverview.”
“She is a strange girl,” mused Marjorie. “I am not very sorry that Rowena Farnham has left high school. Judging from what you just said, it wouldn’t have been long until they grew chummy again. Rowena would have found a way to win Mignon over to her.”
In making this prediction Marjorie had spoken more accurately than she knew. Emboldened by her success in once more attracting Mignon’s attention to herself, Rowena had planned to follow that move with others equally strategic. But before she had found opportunity for a second interview, basket ball had been doomed and she had ceased to be a pupil of Sanford High.
Being among the first to get wind of Miss Archer’s decree and Rowena’s exodus from school, Mignon secretly rejoiced in the thought that she had not been implicated in the affair. She had fully made up her mind to accept the invitation to play on the junior team, were it extended to her. When she discovered the true state of matters, she made haste to declare openly that had she been asked, nothing would have induced her to accept the offer. As for Rowena, she should have known better. After the shabby treatment she had received from Rowena, it was ridiculous in her to dream that she, Mignon, would lend herself to anything so contemptible. A few such guileful speeches to the more credulous girls caused Mignon’s stock to rise considerably higher. Others who knew her too well looked wise and held their peace. Mignon alone knew just how narrowly she had missed falling into a pit of Rowena’s digging.
Quiet Constance entertained her own view of the incident. It coincided completely with Marjorie’s thoughtful opinion. “It’s hard to part a pair of girls like those two,” she said. “They have too much in common. Between you and me, I don’t imagine Mignon will stick to us very long. She’s not interested in us.”
“No, I suppose she thinks us rather too stiff-necked. Oh, well, we can only do our best and let the future take care of itself. There’s the doorbell, Connie. That must be Jerry. She told Captain she’d come over early. Will you go down and escort her in state to my house?”
Constance vanished to return almost immediately, but without Jerry. She had not come back empty-handed, however. A large, white pasteboard box bearing the name “Braley’s” revealed the fact that Hal had outstripped his sister.