“Of course I knew it. You told me that yourself, long ago.”
“Oh.” Julia showed a slightly crestfallen air. “It doesn’t interest me,” she continued after a moment. “I’ve heard that she would have been expelled long before that hazing affair if it hadn’t been for her father’s millions. What are some of the other things she did that might warrant expulsion here? That’s what I should like to know. It’s what I’m going to find out. She made trouble between Doris and me. Doris only speaks to me when she can’t avoid speaking. I’ll never forgive Leslie Cairns for that.” Julia’s voice rose angrily.
“Sh-h-h. You are talking loudly.” Clara held up a warning hand. “Someone passing through the hall might hear you.”
Julia frowned, but discreetly lowered her voice. “If I can learn just one very dishonorable thing she did before she was expelled I can start the petition and carry it out. Most of the girls here are juniors, and will be on our side. You see last year Doris and Augusta Forbes were at swords’ points at class election. Doris made a great mistake when she buried the hatchet after class election and was nice to Miss Forbes. The girls who rooted for her, and against Miss Forbes, are not going to forget in a hurry the way Doris went back on them. Now she is crazy about Miss Harper and Miss Dean and that provoking Miss Harding. She always looks as though she’d like to laugh in my face every time I happen to meet her on the campus, or in the house.”
“I can’t endure her.” Clara was willing to agree with Julia regarding Muriel. More than once she had vaguely detected a furtive, laughing gleam in Muriel’s velvety brown eyes when they had chanced to meet. “I’d love to be vice-president of our club. I’d not care to be president. You would make a better president than I—probably.” She could not resist delivering this one tiny thrust.
“Naturally. I have more initiative than you.” Julia retorted complacently. “I am more competent to manage a club than you would be. But you generally work very nicely with me,” she allowed with condescension.
“I always try to, unless you are too provoking,” Clara flung back. “How many girls at the Hall do you believe we can count upon already? I’ll write down their names in the back of my note book.” She was determined to show herself as extremely useful to Julia’s scheme.
“Very well.” Julia raised dignified brows. “First put down the name of Miss Ferguson and Miss Waters, those two freshies in 17. They are dandy girls. I’m rather glad now that I didn’t make a fuss about the noise in 15 that night before college opened. Miss Ferguson has told me since I met her that she heard it but was too good a sport to make a fuss. She said she detested a fusser, a dig, a prig or a wet blanket. When she was at Davidson Prep she said she used to cut classes and stay out after ten-thirty. Once she and another girl went to a dinner dance in New York without permission.” Julia forgot dignity and grew animated. “Davidson is only a few miles from New York. They had asked permission of the registrar and she had refused them. They went just the same, came back at noon the next day and not a soul except the girls in the next room to them knew they were away. Wasn’t that cunning?”
“Rash, I should say. I imagine I might like Miss Waters better than Miss Ferguson. She’s not so swanky and flapperish.”
“Go ahead then, and be nice to her. It will help our cause along,” Julia advised with simulated heartiness. She craftily avoided arguing with Clara. Her disagreement with Doris of the previous spring had taught her at least one virtue. She could accomplish more by craftiness than by belligerency. She was doggedly determined upon one point—the utter humiliation of Leslie Cairns.