“It was an accident. The majority of the girls at the frolic would have accepted it as such, without being peeved, if it had happened to any one of them. Miss Norris was furious over it. It was too bad, of course. She had on a perfectly ducky white satin frock. She really looked beautiful in it, though I think her beauty is of a cold, arrogant type. She is evidently high-tempered, and she lost control of her temper. She fairly screamed out at Miss Ogden: ‘You’ve ruined my dress, you rough, ill-bred little bounder.’ This, while Miss Ogden was apologizing to her for the accident, and half crying. The beauty line had just begun to form. A good many of the girls fell out of line, mostly the freshies, and hurried over to the wreck. The punch bowl was smashed to smithereens and the stand lay in a big puddle of lemonade. The silk draping was soaked with it. The judges’ platform wasn’t more than a dozen feet away from the smash so we could hear a part of what was being said by the two girls.
“I felt sorry for Miss Ogden. She tried to keep her temper, even after Miss Norris had spoken so insultingly to her. She merely clenched her hands and repeated: ‘I’m more sorry than I can say, Miss Norris; I’m more than ready to pay for your damaged gown. I know it’s imported, but I’ll be glad to—’ Miss Norris answered in the most hateful way, ‘You—You show your ill-breeding in suggesting such a thing. You are simply impossible.’
“Miss Ogden couldn’t stand that so she blazed out: ‘You didn’t seem to regard me as impossible when you asked me to electioneer for you. You, not I, are ill-bred!’ Miss Norris positively shrieked, ‘How dare you insult me? You know you haven’t spoken truthfully.’ Six or seven of Miss Norris’s crowd joined in then, and they all turned upon Miss Ogden. Then there began such a chorus of gabbling, I couldn’t distinguish much that was being said. Some of Miss Ogden’s friends joined the fuss and began to defend her. She was in the middle of the crowd, wild with rage, telling them all what she thought of them. The whole fuss hardly occupied more than five minutes’ time. Miss Elgin, the soph president, hurried over to me and said: ‘Come and help me stop this fuss, please, Miss Mason. It’s disgraceful!’ I told her to come up on the platform and order the beauty line to reform instantly, saying that, otherwise, the contest would be declared off.”
Vera laughed softly. “You should have seen the mob break up. Five minutes later the line was strolling around the gym, as decorously as could be. I don’t know what became of either Miss Norris, or Miss Ogden. Neither was in the beauty line, naturally. Most of Miss Norris’s crowd were. It sounds uncharitable, but I’m convinced that Miss Norris hoped to win in the contest. She wouldn’t have, though, even if her gown hadn’t been damaged. Miss Burke, a dormitory freshie, won it. She was the most beautiful girl in the line. The dorms gave her a great send-off. I beat it for the Hall the moment after Doris delivered the adjuration to Beauty, but I could still hear the girls cheering until I was half way across the campus.”
“Miss Ogden is in her room. Leslie is with her,” Leila informed Vera. “She came in in a fine flurry. We fled, knowing we had best leave her to Leslie.”
“She has my sympathy. It was not only ill-bred, but also unkind in Miss Norris to make such a scene because of an accident,” was Vera’s slightly contemptuous opinion. “If this fuss had occurred before the class election she would never have won the presidential vote.”
“She’s made a bad start at Hamilton,” Marjorie said soberly. “She’s taken the wrong road, and no one but herself can put her on the right one again. If only she could be made to see it.”
“It is like you, Beauty, to mourn over the ill-doer, and for that we have loved you. Leslie is what she is today because you believed she had a better self. It is yet too young in the college year to say what beneficial changes may come, if any, to Miss Norris. If she has a better self,” Leila’s tone had become sceptical, “I am afraid she will be put to considerable trouble to find it. I know I shall take no pains to point it out to her.”
“Shall you ask her to be in Henry the Fifth after what happened tonight?” Marjorie inquired half mischievously.
“Now you are asking me something.” Leila’s wide smile broke out. “I might be doing better were I to ask her to play ‘Kate’ in ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’”