“She knows better than to be top-lofty with me,” Julia said in an independent tone. “I am the only girl on the campus who made her understand that I’d not fall down and worship her.”
“Hm-m,” was Mildred’s sole response. It reminded Julia forcibly of Clara. Clara had signed the petition, but had secretly regretted the act. She was hourly growing more disgusted with Julia and frequently wondered how she had ever even believed she liked her quarrelsome roommate. She was no longer jealous of Mildred. She detested the bold freshman more than ever, and derived a resentful pleasure from the thought that Julia and Mildred could not possibly stay friends for any length of time.
On the morning of the third day Miss Remson called Julia and Mildred into her office from the breakfast table to inform them that she would meet the Orchid Club as a body in the living room that evening at eight o’clock to discuss with them the matter of the petition.
At half past seven Annie ushered Marjorie, winsome and smiling into the kitchen by way of the back door. “Miss Remson’s in her sitting room watching for you, Miss Marjorie,” she gigglingly announced. Annie was under the impression that a huge joke was to be played upon someone. She had no idea as to what it might be, or who was the victim. She merely giggled in sympathy.
Up in Miss Remson’s room Marjorie found Leslie Cairns, Doris Monroe, Muriel Harding and the manager awaiting her arrival at the Hall. As she had spent the previous evening with them in the same sitting room she responded to her friends’ laughingly significant greetings in the same spirit.
“Now girls,” Miss Remson addressed the quartette in her bright fond fashion. “I leave the carrying out of the program to you. Keep in line behind me when the door is opened and I step into the living room. If objection to your presence at the meeting is made, let me talk to the objectors.”
“We’ll be silent as specters till it comes our turn to talk,” Muriel assured, her velvety brown eyes twinkling her enjoyment of the occasion.
At precisely eight o’clock Miss Remson’s doubled fist beat an imperative little tattoo on the living room door. A small blue-eyed freshman with a worried expression opened the door. She sent up an abashed “Oh!” and watched the line of five file into the room in amazed fascination. The manager led her companions straight up the aisle formed by the arrangement of rows of chairs, oblivious to the growing murmur of voices which attended her progress up the room. She paused near the two chairs set in an open space at the end of the room which were occupied by the president and vice-president of the Orchid Club. The four girls grouped themselves behind her. A dead stillness descended upon the room. It was an ominous stillness such as precedes a storm.