“I wrote you I’d surely be here in April,” Leslie brusquely reminded, “and here I am.”
“I’m awfully glad of it.” Doris spoke with pleasing sincerity. “Is Mrs. Gaylord with you?”
“Ye-es.” Leslie drawled the affirmation with exaggerated weariness. “How she does wish she wasn’t. She nearly had a conniption when I told her we were going to make a flying trip to Hamilton. I’ll meet you at the Colonial at four this P. M. You’ll hear more of my history then. Bye.” Leslie was gone.
Doris’s beautiful face was a study as she turned from the telephone. She was a trifle amazed at her distinct pleasure in Leslie’s unexpected arrival at Hamilton. Leslie had been so moodily unbearable after their return from the holiday vacation which they had spent in New York, Doris had felt relieved at the former’s sudden disappearance from Hamilton and the subsequent receipt of Leslie’s brief note from New York.
It was only recently that she had begun to miss Leslie and wish for her society. In spite of her ugly moods Leslie was possessed of an originality which Doris found singularly enlivening. No one could say more oddly funny things than Leslie when she chose to be humorous. Leslie never hesitated to pay extravagantly for whatever she happened to want. Doris admired in her what she considered Leslie’s “adventurous spirit.” She had been brought up to know her father’s explorer friends. They were hardy, intrepid world wanderers of daring. She had listened to their tales of reckless adventuring into the unknown and gloried in the doings of these splendid captains of adventure. There were occasions when it appeared to her that Leslie showed something of the same adventurous, undaunted spirit.
As a matter of truth, Leslie was animated by this very spirit. She had directed it, however, into ignoble channels. What she chose to regard as strategy and daring were nothing other than trickery and lawlessness.
Doris knew little or nothing of Leslie’s flagrant offenses as a student at Hamilton College. She had learned of the latter’s expellment from college from Leslie herself. She had consequently never heard the rights of the affair. She had heard vague stories concerning it from Julia Peyton, Clara Carter and one or two juniors. The knowledge of Leslie’s immense wealth had hampered even their gossip about the ex-student. The freshmen and the sophomores, who were Doris’s chief companions, had entered Hamilton too late to be on the campus at the period before Leslie’s and her chums’ expulsion from college. They, therefore, knew not much about her.
The present junior and senior classes had been respectively the freshman and sophomore classes during Leslie’s senior year at Hamilton, which had been also the year of her expulsion from college. At that particular time the attitude of the two lower classes had been one of horrified disapproval of the seventeen San Soucians who had been expelled from Hamliton for hazing a student. That was almost as much as any of them had ever learned about the affair. The girls who knew the disagreeable truth were Marjorie Dean and her intimates. Silence with them was honor. They knew a great many other derogatory facts about Leslie Cairns and her methods which they kept strictly sub rosa.
Doris was ready to welcome Leslie with warmth. She sorely lacked companions of interest. She had begun to grow bored to satiety by admiration. The freshies’ and sophs’ adoration for her was too superficial to be satisfying. They enjoyed rushing the college beauty. Each class liked to parade her on the campus and fête her at Baretti’s, the Colonial or at their pet Hamilton tea shops as a triumphant class trophy. She was selfish, but not shallow; indifferent, but not vapid. It was in her composition to give as well as receive. Because she had been surfeited with adulation she had lately experienced a vague unrestful desire to turn from the knowledge of her own charms to an admiration of some one else.
First among the students of Hamilton she admired Leila Harper. Robin Page was her second “crush.” Muriel made a third in a trio which had won her difficult fancy. None of these, however, were likely to become her friends. She would never make overtures to them. She was confident that they would never make further friendly advances to her.