CHAPTER XIV.—A TRIAL OF PATIENCE
During the few steps down the stairs and back to the dining room no one spoke. At the door Vera relieved her pent-up feelings by softly exclaiming: “Stung!” bringing one small hand down smartly upon the other. The unaccustomed slang from dainty Midget cleared the snubbed P. G.’s cloudy atmosphere with a soft chorus of giggles.
Miss Remson listened to Kathie’s account of their defeated errand with “Hum!” “Why, the idea!” and “Too bad!” Kathie had not said a word to Miss Monroe save to acknowledge the introduction Marjorie made and “Good-night.” She now simply repeated the conversation as nearly as she could, placing no unfavorable stress on Miss Monroe’s rude reception of the quintette.
“The way Kathie has told you about our call is the way we are all trying to feel about it,” Marjorie said earnestly. “As good P. G.’s we must overlook more than ever what we may think is out of place. Miss Monroe isn’t used to American girls, I suppose. Perhaps she thinks we are too eager, or that we haven’t elegant repose, or——” She glanced inquiringly at her friends: “I don’t know what she thinks.”
“Let me say it for the rest of you. I have known a few like this girl in England, but none so pretty. She will be pleasant? Ah, yes; but who knows when?” Leila flashed a canny smile. “She did not ache to know us tonight. Her taste will not have improved by tomorrow; nor for many a long day.”
“Never mind; we’re not sensitive plants,” was Marjorie’s light assurance. “Our haughty, fairy-tale princess may change her mind about us later.” Marjorie made light of the snub in order to soothe Miss Remson’s wounded pride at the rudeness offered her favorite students. “Maybe she is so upset over having to come to America to college, when she doesn’t wish to, that she can’t be very cordial to any one.”
“Good little Lieutenant, you keep the first tradition better than I.” Leila dropped a fond arm over Marjorie’s shoulder.
“Certainly, I don’t, silly.” Marjorie’s energetically protesting tones suddenly ceased.
Silvery and sweet on the scented night air came the chimes’ familiar prelude. Followed the stroke of eleven, clear, solemn, individual in tone. To Marjorie it was as though her second Hamilton friend had come to say a soothing good-night to her after a “trying hike.” While she had kept on a strictly even keel during the short call on Miss Monroe she had secretly winced at the other girl’s insolent reception of her and her chums.
While the chimes sang away the hurt she sat listening to them and trying to clear her brain of all ungenerous thoughts. Her face burned as she recalled the steady way in which Miss Monroe had looked at her. She understood the reason. While Marjorie was absolutely without vanity, she could not pretend that she did not know her own claim to beauty. For four years she had been hailed frankly at Hamilton as the college beauty. Far from flattered, she ducked the title whenever she could. Always in her mind lived the quaint charge delivered by the judge at the beauty contest which she had won during her freshman year.