“Yes. What she told me no one besides Marjorie and myself knew. No one except Marjorie could have possibly told her. I shall never speak to Marjorie again.”
“I give it up. You certainly seem to know something that I don’t.” Jerry turned on her heel and walked to the door. Once outside she muttered: “Whatever you know that I don’t, I’ll make it my business to find out or my name’s not Jerry Geraldine Jeremiah Macy.”
CHAPTER XXI—A MESSAGE FROM JERRY
Jerry had a second mission to perform, however, which she hailed with anticipation. Cut off by her own obstinacy from former intimacy with her chums and from the work of the day nursery, she was an extremely lonely young person with a great deal of idle time on her hands. Energetic Jerry loathed inaction. She therefore chose Mignon La Salle as her second subject for activity and lay in wait for her.
Two days passed, following her interview with Lucy Warner, before she found the desired opportunity to waylay the French girl. Setting off after school for a lonely session at Sargent’s, at the curbstone before the shop she spied Mignon’s runabout. Forging gleefully into her favorite haunt, she steered straight for Mignon, who sat in solitary grandeur at a rear table. Catching sight of Jerry, the arch plotter half rose from her chair as though about to make a prudent exit from the place.
“Sit down.” Before her quarry could leave the table, Jerry had reached it. “Don’t try to dodge me. I’ve been on the watch for you ever since you made trouble for Marjorie Dean. I’m not a Lookout now so I can tell you a few things.”
“I won’t listen to you.” Mignon was now on her feet.
“Oh, yes, you will. If you don’t, I’ll go to your house and say my say to your father.” Jerry looked grimly capable of executing the threat.
Fearful of such a calamity, Mignon reluctantly resumed her seat. “I’m not afraid of you,” she sneered. “Say quickly what you have to say. I am in a hurry to go home.”
“I’m not. Still I don’t care to be seen talking with you any longer than I can help.” Jerry was brutally rude and she knew it. The time for keeping up appearances was past. “Now this is what I have to say. You are the most disloyal, mischief-making person I’ve ever known. You have no more right to be a Lookout than that soda-fountain has; my apologies to the soda-fountain. You can’t fool me. You never have. I know you like a book. It was on account of you that I left the club. I’ll never go back to it until you’re out of it.”