Miss Hamilton paused. Her alert dark eyes were dancing with some secret of her own which gave promise of being signally amusing. Jerry and Marjorie knew the signs. Miss Susanna was on the verge of imparting to them something in the nature of a pleasant surprise. Jerry’s surmise of the afternoon that the last of the Hamiltons had gone to New York in the interests of the dormitory flashed into the minds of both girls.
“The odd feature of the whole affair is, Jonas has been elected to go to New York, now that I’ve returned to the Arms.” Miss Susanna’s gleeful, child-like chuckle was heard. “Poor Jonas. He looked so horrified when I informed him of what I had in store for him.”
“Shall we inquire what it’s all about?” Jerry flashed Marjorie the pretense of a bewildered glance.
“It’s the only way we’ll ever find out,” sighed Marjorie in an exaggeratedly hopeless tone. “Unless we pounce upon Jonas in the hall and bully him into telling us.” She turned the merest fraction of a glance on Miss Hamilton as she proposed this violent means of obtaining information.
“A good plan,” heartily approved Jerry. “I’ll improve upon it. I suggest that we rush him, or anyone else around here who may happen to know something we don’t, but would like to know. Let’s begin now.”
“Come on.” Marjorie rose and brandished two bare, smooth, dimpled arms threateningly in Miss Susanna’s direction. Jerry followed suit, even more menacing of gesture. Her ridiculous, desperado thrust of chin, the slow, determined advance of the pair upon the little, bright-eyed figure in the chair further added to the astonishment of Jonas as he suddenly appeared in the tea room to refill the tea-pot.
“I guess I got here just in time,” he slyly declared, his mouth drawing into a humorous pucker as he picked up the tea-pot to refill it with fresh tea.
“In time to land yourself in difficulties; not to save me,” Miss Susanna told him between chuckles. “We’re both threatened with attack, Jonas, unless we stand and deliver our great secret.”
Miss Susanna had thrown herself into the spirit of the bit of by-play with the merry zest of a child. Since she had known Marjorie and the light-hearted, fun-loving coterie of Hamilton girls she had appeared to grow younger and younger. That particular, congenial galaxy of youth Miss Susanna had taken to her heart as a charm against crabbed old age.
“Maybe we’d better not make any resistance, Miss Susanna,” Jonas advised with a timid air. It reduced the two desperadoes to a state of giggles which utterly broke up their threatening aspect.