“I’m not thinking of Miss Crawford. I’m thinking of Leslie.” Marjorie’s winsome smile broke out.
“I suspected that you had sympathy for someone besides me. I kept quiet out of Irish politeness.” Despite her light retort Leila was surveying Marjorie with true Celtic shrewdness. She knew Marjorie to be at the point of announcing something of especial import.
The other girls were hardly less keen at reading the signs and arriving at the same conclusion. Thus far none of her chums knew of the intimate conversation she and Leslie Cairns had held on that last memorable afternoon the two girls had spent on the observation platform of Peter Cairns’ private car. Marjorie had regarded it in the light of a secret confidence. Now, however, she had decided to impart it to the little group of Travelers as a matter of interest to Leslie. The six Travelers present already knew of the part Leslie Cairns had played the previous spring in the Rustic Romp. Leslie had requested Marjorie to tell her intimates of the affair. “I’d like your Beanstalks to know the rights of that performance,” she had said to Marjorie with a tinge of humor.
“Girls;” Marjorie’s clear decided intonation brought all eyes to bear upon her; “Leslie Cairns wants just one thing above all others that I wish we could help her to gain. She wants to come back to the campus and do her senior year over again.”
CHAPTER VIII.
PLEDGED TO STAND BY
“What?” Jerry allowed the cake knife in her hand to drop squarely upon the cake. She had been poising it over the big square delicacy preparatory to replenishing the cake plate. In her surprise she vented Leslie Cairns’ own pet ejaculation.
“Good night!” Muriel Harding pretended collapse in her chair.
“I am afraid she is courting the impossible.” Vera Mason shook her head.
“There’s something in your tone, Beauty, that makes me think it might not be impossible.” Leila was regarding Marjorie with a quizzical smile. “Yet for the life of me I cannot see how it might happen.”