Finding the desire to gossip irresistible she and Clara Carter entertained a soph with the tale one evening in their room. The soph, Lena Marsden, a quiet studious girl, had a flourishing crush on Doris. She promptly acquainted Doris with the ill news under promise of secrecy. “If some one like Miss Mason or Miss Harper, or any of the P. G.’s who have poise and influence would reprimand Miss Peyton, maybe she’d not talk about it any more.” was Lena’s opinion.
Leslie’s repeated unkind and untruthful estimate of Marjorie had tended to destroy Doris’s confidence in her, at least. Julia herself had spoken slightingly of Hamilton’s most popular post graduate. Doris decided that of the seven post graduates she knew the two most likely to command the difficult silence of Julia were Veronica Lynne and Leila Harper. Her final choice fell upon Leila. She and Leila had grown quite friendly as the rehearsals of “The Knight of the Northern Sun” progressed. As her Norse lover, Godoran, Augusta Forbes and Doris had also progressed from stiff civility to real friendliness.
“Will you come to my room this afternoon about five, Miss Harper?” Doris requested on the day before that of a complete rehearsal of the play. In the act of leaving the dining room after luncheon Doris paused for an instant behind Leila’s chair.
“With pleasure. I may be a little late, but I won’t fail to come,” Leila assured. Supposing Doris’s request had something to do with the approaching rehearsal, Leila thought nothing further about it. It was twenty minutes past five that afternoon when she knocked on the door of Doris’s room. It was the first time she had been asked to enter it by Doris. Muriel never entertained her chums there, “for fear of freezing them,” she always said.
“There’s something I must ask you, Miss Harper,” Doris opened the conversation with an anxious little rush. She went on to lay the case of Julia’s spite against Leslie before Leila. “I am sorry to have to mention Miss Cairns’s name even to you. There seemed only this one way. I know I can trust you. I know you can suggest something.”
Leila listened with laughter in her blue eyes. She had already been agitating her resourceful brain on the matter of Julia’s garrulity. The plan she had dimly formed on the day when she and Marjorie had driven to Orchard Inn had developed better even than she had expected.
“I think I have a way of managing her,” she said with a flashing smile of confidence.
“She is not easy to manage,” warned Doris. “It will take something unusual to make an impression on her. She is envious and jealous and that blinds her to see much good in any one.”
“I will see her when I leave you. I have seen Miss Cairns, Miss Monroe. Miss Dean and I met her on the way from Orchard Inn several days ago. She spoke to Miss Dean in my presence of the Romp. She is your friend, I believe, and is anxious that you shall not be blamed for anything. That is really all I wish to say in the matter.” Leila gave Doris a straight, significant glance.
Doris settled back limply in her chair, “I—I—am surprised,” she stammered. “I wish you—no, I don’t, either. I’ll ask Leslie. She will tell me what it’s all about. I like Leslie, Miss Harper.”