“Why should I? You haven’t stopped to consider me?” Clara retorted, frost in her tones. “But it doesn’t matter. Please say what you wish. I am interested in this story. I began it on the train and I’m anxious to finish it tonight. I shan’t have time to-morrow.”
“Oh, bother your old story!” Julia exclaimed. “You are simply peeved. The story I have to tell you is a good deal more interesting than the one you’re reading. I have just heard the true story of Leslie Cairns. What do you think of that?” Julia was full of malicious elation.
“True story?” Clara returned interrogatively. She refused to let curiosity interfere with her miffed assumption of dignity.
“Yes, the true story of how she led the girls she chummed with into a hazing party and then tried to lay the whole thing to them so as to save herself from being expelled. That’s the sort of person she is.”
“I suppose Mildred Ferguson told you all this,” Clara said coolly. “Where did she find out so much? How do you know what she says is true?”
“She found out about Miss Cairns from a cousin. The cousin was one of the girls who chummed with Miss Cairns, and who was with the hazing party. I believe every word of what she told me.” Julia crested her head in displeased defiance of Clara.
“Mm-m.” Clara unbent a trifle. “Who is her cousin? When did she hear about Miss Cairns? Off the campus, I believe. I’ve never found anyone on the campus who knew the rights of that hazing business. They say Miss Dean knows. She ought to, since she was the student those girls hazed. She’d never tell anyone a word about it, though.”
“She may keep her information,” shrugged Julia scornfully. “I know more about it now, perhaps, than she does. I mean, I know the Cairns side of it. You see Mildred’s cousin is a very rich girl named Dulcie Vale. She is a society favorite, but she was a senior at Hamilton when it all happened.”
“Then she must have been expelled from Hamilton, too.” Clara put in half contemptuously. “All those San Soucians were expelled.”
“She was not,” Julia emphasized, frowning. “She left Hamilton before it happened because she knew that Leslie Cairns had betrayed the whole crowd of girls by being too confidential with another student named Miss Walbert, who was noted on the campus as a tale-bearer and gossip.”