“Listen to that.” Leila made Vera a killingly appreciative bow.
“Nothing like it. I wish I were,” Leslie said regretfully.
“Let us have a contest, so that we may learn whether you are more clever than I, or, I than you,” Leila proposed blandly. “If you will have pity on a distracted Irish playwright, and help her out, then we shall both be in a fair way to out-do each other in cleverness.”
Leila had scented refusal of the honor she wished to do Leslie in the latter’s undecided manner. She now proposed to give her no chance to refuse. “We shall have fine times consulting together since we shall be near each other at Wayland Hall,” she smoothly pointed out.
“I’d love to manage the Playhouse, and I know Peter the Great would be delighted to have me do it, except for one thing.” Leslie spoke in her direct way. “There’d surely be ill-natured criticisms raised about it. Suppose it was said that Peter hadn’t been disinterested in giving the Playhouse to Hamilton College; that he had given it with the idea of making me foremost, and important, in campus affairs. Probably more spiteful remarks than that might be circulated.”
She stopped, staring half moodily at Leila. “‘The way of the transgressor is hard.’” She gave a short mirthless laugh. “Those first three years of mine on the campus were a mess. I behaved like a villain. Now it’s up to me to stand the gaff.”
“No, Leslie, it isn’t.” Marjorie cut in decidedly. “You have more than retrieved whatever mistakes you made during your first three years at Hamilton by what you did last year. Leila needs you this year. You would be an ideal manager for the Playhouse. Don’t allow anything else to matter. Depend upon it, Leila has already thought up some nice way of arrangement for you. I can see it in that beaming smile of hers.”
“I have fine arrangements for all occasions.” Leila was now grinning broadly. “When college opens I shall write an article for the ‘Campus Echo,’” she continued. “In it I shall outline the policy of the Playhouse, and give a resumé of what I intend to do in the way of plays during the college year. I shall also state that I have asked Leslie to assume the managership of the theatre, because of her extreme capability. Then let anyone start anything, and watch Irish Leila take the field, five feet at a bound, shillalah in hand.”
“Give us an imitation now of that five-foot bound,” coaxed Jerry.
“Not until I have first practiced it in private,” Leila declared with canny firmness. “And I suppose all is now settled, as amiably as you please, and the Playhouse has a new manager.” She turned ingratiatingly to Leslie, who could not help smiling, despite her doubts.