“Go and call on her very soon. She’d be so pleased. I’m sure she would. She admires your basket ball playing.” This affably from Jerry who was far more favorable impressed with the sophomore that she had expected to be.
“There’s one thing I believe I ought to tell you to clear my slate,” Miss Walker said presently in a half hesitating tone. “It’s about Miss Peyton and Miss Carter. I mention them frankly because I intend to tell them that I have seen you, and of our talk.” Her voice strengthened into one of resolution. “May I ask you? Has Professor Matthews ever reprimanded you and Miss Macy for being unduly noisy in your room?” She stared anxiously at Marjorie.
“Why, no.” Marjorie cast an enigmatical glance at Jerry. Then the two laughed. “Please pardon us for laughing,” she apologized. “Last fall Miss Peyton threatened to report us to President Matthews. About two weeks later a letter came to me in the president’s hand. It really took courage to open it. Oh-h-h,” she drew a soft laughing breath, “it was an invitation to dinner at his home to meet one of his nieces who had come from the west to visit the Matthews. Jerry and I thought then that perhaps Miss Peyton had decided against reporting us to him.”
“I wish she had, but she didn’t. I advised her against such petty spite,” Louise declared disgustedly. “I am glad President Matthews ignored the report. She made it in person. She told me as much, but she would not tell me what he said to her in the matter. I suspect Prexy was very unsympathetic.” Louise’s gray, long-lashed eyes sparkled with quiet humor. “Anyway, I’m free from that worry. I wanted to tell you that as much as you wanted to tell me about the letter.”
Frank confession from caller and guests banished the strain which had marked the beginning of the interview. Presently Louise had been invited to remain at the Hall to dinner and afterward hob-nob with the chums in Ronny’s and Lucy’s room where a newly-arrived fruit cake sent Lucy by her mother was to be the center of attraction at a jollification.
The three girls were making rapid strides toward friendship when a knock at the door revealed Gussie Forbes and Calista Wilmot as demanding the hospitality of Room 15. It was the satisfying climax to a mutual admiration society which had sprung up between Louise and Gussie on the very field of battle. It was a case of when “soph meets soph.” The two distinguished centers found so much in common to talk about they blissfully forgot Marjorie, Jerry and Calista for the time being, greatly to the delight of these three.
Shortly before Louise Walker went to her own campus house she said to Marjorie in a low tone: “Will you come with me now to your room. My wraps are there. I will bring them in here, but I wish to say something very quietly to you.”
“We’re going into my room for a minute or so, gang,” Marjorie called to the others as she and the sophomore went out the door.
“It’s about Miss Monroe I wish to speak,” began Louise hurriedly. “Could you—do you know what ought to be done to keep her away from that Miss Cairns? The freshies seem to admire them as a stunning combination, plus the white car. But the sophs are decidedly against Miss Cairns. A good many stories about her dishonorable ways while she was a student at Hamilton have drifted down to us from friends and older sisters who have been graduated from here. We have been told that she was expelled from Hamilton, together with a crowd of her chums. She was here when you entered college, was she not?” Louise asked earnestly.
“She was a sophomore when we were freshies. She was expelled from Hamilton at the end of her junior year,” Marjorie said evenly. “I know of a great many things she has done that she should not have done, yet she is somewhat like another girl I know whose mother died when she was a baby and who grew up believing she must always have her own way. The girl I mention suddenly faced about and made herself over. Perhaps Leslie Cairns will do the same. I think it would be far better if Miss Monroe had nothing whatever to do with her. The trouble is—no one but Miss Monroe can decide that. All we can do is to help her by our good will.”