“Why don’t you come back and live at the dormitory? Your father could afford to pay your fees, couldn’t he?” Clara suggested. This time she showed real sympathy.
“No. That is I’m not sure. It’s his idea—for me to be his secretary. He says I’ve always been so wasteful and extravagant that it is time I had to shoulder a little responsibility. He’d have to pay a confidential secretary capable of doing his work not less than from fifty to a hundred dollars a month. He says he must cut expenses to a minimum in order to pull himself up again financially. It may take him a year to do it. He made my mother write me all this. She is dreadfully upset by the whole thing. Anyway I wouldn’t come back to the campus as a dormitory girl. I simply couldn’t!” Julia exclaimed vehemently.
“My father would lend your father some money, Julia, if I were to ask him,” Clara said after a short silence, broken only by the sound of Julia’s muffled sobs.
“No, no.” Julia made a dissenting gesture. “My father is awfully proud. He wouldn’t accept help from even his oldest friends. He’s an out and out crank about such things. Thank you just the same, Clara. It’s sweet in you to wish to help me. I—I—appreciate—it. Never mind me. You’d better hurry along, or you’ll be late for French.”
Clara cast a hasty glance at the wall clock, gathered up her books and hurried away. On her way to her recitation she racked her brain for some way in which she might help Julia. Of the Wall Street realm of financiering she knew very little. Her father was a manufacturer and had inherited wealth from his father. Julia had occasionally told her tales of “Wolf” Peyton’s exploits as a financier. She had never been much interested in hearing them. She now wished she had listened to them more attentively.
Her mind fixed on the subject of Julia’s misfortunes, she paid little attention to her French lesson. On the way back to Wayland Hall she chanced to encounter Doris Monroe.
“What are you looking so solemn about, Clara?” Doris greeted in friendly fashion.
“Oh, I was just thinking. Somebody just told me some bad news. Not about myself,” she added quickly. “I was just trying to think of a way I could help the person.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Doris’ alert brain instantly reverted to Julia Peyton. She had caught a glimpse of Julia hurrying through the hall to her room that morning and had noticed her woebegone expression.
“No. Why, I don’t know.” Clara paused uncertainly. “I’d be breaking a confidence to tell you, but you might know of a way to help.”