“She will, I think,” Mildred Ferguson predicted. “I heard today that she was all broke-up over the write-up. She has been taking her meals at Baretti’s, too. That’s why we haven’t seen her in the dining room at the Hall.”
“It’s a wonder Miss Cairns hasn’t been trotting around with her, trying to show how much democracy she has,” Marylyn Spencer curled a red upper lip. “They’ve not been seen together since the afternoon when the story came out in the ‘Gazette.’”
“Miss Cairns is looking after her own interests by dropping her, I presume. She had better watch her step. She used to be considered the most lawless student that ever enrolled at Hamilton. She made a wise change in her ways when she managed to get back again on the campus. Now she plumes herself on being so intimate with Marjorie Dean Macy and that crowd of wonder workers. I detest Leslie Cairns,” Mildred exclaimed with bitter energy.
“For goodness’ sake, Laura, don’t fall down on your speech,” Stephanie interposed nervously. She was tired of hearing Mildred’s tirade against Leslie, from a too frequent repetition of it.
“I won’t. Let me alone,” Laura replied to Stephanie in the deep forbidding voice she was soon to use as chairman.
“Will she knock on the door?” Reba Franklin cast a quick glance toward the appointed portal by which Jewel Marie Ogden must enter, provided she obeyed the dread summons.
“No. The note directed her to open the door, and walk in. Sh-h-h. I’m sure I heard a step,” Mildred raised a warning finger.
Came the turn of the knob. A muffled sigh ascended from the masked tribunal. Jewel Ogden had stepped into the room, her black eyes fixed upon the waiting gray dominos in an expression of anxious dread. For an instant she stood poised on the threshold as though about to turn and flee, then she came slowly forward until she was within a few feet of the long oak bench on which were seated the fearsome company of masks.
“I received a note,” she began bravely, “from the Chairman of the Campus Welfare Committee. I should like to speak to her, please.” Her eyes roved timidly up and down the line of masks.
“I am the chairman.” Laura had risen. She stepped forward a little, standing between the diminutive freshman and the row of silent dominos. “My dear Miss Ogden,” she began, “it has long been the custom in almost every college for the unjust to persecute the just. You have been summoned here tonight by a certain group of girls who have yet to learn how to live, or how to let others live.”