Mary stared at the paper with slightly troubled eyes. Estranged from Marjorie, she and Mignon had become boon companions. Since that eventful morning when she had chosen her own course, she had discovered a number of things about the French girl not wholly to her liking. First of all she had expected that her latest sturdy defiance of the Deans would elicit the highest approbation on the part of Mignon. Greatly to her disappointment, her new friend, in whose behalf she had renounced so much, had received her bold announcement, "I'm done with Marjorie Dean forever," quite as a matter of course. She had merely shrugged her expressive shoulders and remarked, "I am glad you've come to your senses," without even inquiring into the details. Ignoring Mary's wrongs, which had now become an old story to her and therefore devoid of interest, she had launched forth into a lengthy discussion of her own plans, a subject of which she was never tired of talking. After that it did not take long for the foolish little lieutenant, who had so unfeelingly deserted her regiment, to see that Mignon was entirely self-centered. Other revelations soon followed. Mignon was agreeable as long as she could have her own way. She would not brook contradiction, and she snapped her fingers at advice. She was a law unto herself, and to be her chum meant to follow blindly and unquestioningly wherever she chose to lead. Mary tried to bring herself to believe that she had made a wise choice. It was an honor to be best friends with the richest girl in Sanford High School. She owned an electric runabout and wore expensive clothes. At home she was the moving power about which the houseful of servants meekly revolved. All this was very gratifying, to be sure, but deep in her heart Mary knew that she would rather spend one blessed hour of the old, carefree companionship with Marjorie than a year with this strange, elfish girl with whom she had cast her lot. But it was too late to retreat. She had burned her bridges behind her. She must abide by that which she had chosen.
To give her due credit, she still believed that Mignon had been misjudged. She invested the French girl with a sense of honor which she had never possessed, and to this Mary pinned her faith. Perhaps if she had not been still sullenly incensed against Constance Stevens, the scales might have fallen from her eyes. But her resentment against the latter was exceeded only by Mignon's dislike for the gentle girl. Thus the common bond of hatred held them together. She had only to mention Constance's name and Mignon would rise to the bait with torrential anger. This in itself was an unfailing solace to Mary.
To-night, however, her conscience troubled her. For the past three weeks basket ball had been the all-important topic of the hour with the students of Sanford High School. It was the usual custom for the instructor in gymnastics to hold basket ball try-outs among the aspiring players of the various classes. Assisted by several seniors, she culled the most skilful players to make the respective teams. But this year a new departure had been declared. Miss Randall was no longer instructor. She had resigned her position the previous June and passed on to other fields. Her successor, Miss Davis, had ideas of her own on the subject of basket ball and no sooner had she set foot in the gymnasium than she proceeded to put them into effect. Instead of picking one team from the freshman and sophomore classes, she selected two from each class. Then she organized a series of practice games to determine which of the two teams should represent their respective classes in the field of glory.
Marjorie, Susan Atwell, Muriel Harding, a tall girl named Esther Lind, and Harriet Delaney made one of the two teams. Mignon La Salle, Elizabeth Meredith, Daisy Griggs, Louise Selden and Anne Easton, the latter four devoted supporters of Mignon La Salle, composed the other. There had been some little murmuring on the part of Marjorie's coterie of followers over the choice. Miss Davis was a close friend of Miss Merton and it was whispered that she had been posted beforehand in choosing the second team. Otherwise, how had it happened to be made up of Mignon's admiring satellites?
Miss Davis had decreed that three practice games between the two sophomore teams should be played to decide their prowess. The winners should then be allowed to challenge the freshmen, who were being put through a similar contest, to play a great deciding game for athletic honors on the Saturday afternoon following Thanksgiving. She also undertook to make basket ball plans for the juniors and seniors, but these august persons declined to become enthusiastic over the movement and balked so vigorously at the first intimation of interference with their affairs that Miss Davis retired gracefully from their horizon and devoted her energy to the younger and more pliable pupils of the school.
Not yet arrived at the dignity of the two upper classes, the sophomores and freshmen were still too devoted to the game itself to resent being managed. To find in Miss Davis an ardent devotee of basket ball was a distinct gain. Miss Archer, although she attended the games played between the various teams, was not, and had not been, wholly in favor of the sport since that memorable afternoon of the year before when Mignon had accused Ellen Seymour, now a junior, of purposely tripping her during a wild rush for the ball. Privately, Miss Archer considered basket ball rather a rough sport for girls and they knew that a repetition of last year's disturbance meant death to basket ball in Sanford High School.
Two of the three practice games had been played by the sophomore teams. The squad of which Marjorie was captain had easily won the first. This had greatly incensed Captain Mignon and her players. A series of locker and corner confabs had followed. Mary, who did not aspire to basket ball honors, had been present at these talks. In the beginning the discussions had merely been devoted to the devising of signals and the various methods of scoring against their opponents. But gradually a new and sinister note had crept in. Mignon did not actually counsel her team to take unfair advantages, but she made many artful suggestions, backed up by a play of her speaking shoulders that conveyed volumes to her followers. It began to dawn upon Mary that these "clever tricks," as Mignon was wont to designate them, were not only flagrant dishonesties but dangerous means to the end, quite likely to result in physical harm. Her sense of honor was by no means dead, although companionship with Mignon had served to blunt it. She had remonstrated rather weakly with the latter on one occasion, as they walked toward home together after leaving the other girls, and had been ridiculed for her pains.
She now stared at Mignon's irregular, disjointed writing, which in some curious way suggested the girl's elfish personality, with unhappy eyes. Just what did Mignon mean by intimating that several persons were "going to be surprised" when to-morrow's practice game was over? It sounded like a threat. No doubt it was. Suppose—some one were to be hurt through this tricky playing of Mignon's team! Suppose that some one were to be Marjorie! Mary shuddered. She remembered once reading in a newspaper an account of a basket-ball game in which a girl had been tripped by an opponent and had fallen. That girl had hurt her spine and the physicians had decreed that she would never walk again. Mary put her hands before her eyes as though to shut out the mental vision of Marjorie, lying white and moaning on the gymnasium floor, the victim of an unscrupulous adversary. What could she do? She could not warn Marjorie to be on her guard. She had now passed out of her former chum's friendship of her own free will. She could not go privately to Muriel or Susan or the other members of the team. No, indeed! Yet, somehow, she must convey a message of warning.
Seized with a sudden impulse to carry out her resolve, she picked up a pencil and began to scrawl on a bit of paper in a curious, back-handed fashion, quite different from her neat Spencerian hand. Over and over she practiced this hand on a loosened sheet from her note-book. At length she rose and, going to her chiffonier, took from the top drawer a leather writing case. Tumbling its contents hastily over, she selected a sheet of pale gray paper. There was a single envelope to match. Long it had lain among her stationery, the last of a kind she had formerly used. She was sure Marjorie had never seen it, so if it fell into her hands she could not trace it to her. Once more she practiced the back-handed scrawl. Then, with an energy born of the remorse which was to serve as a continual penance for her folly, she wrote:
"To the Sophomore Team: