Winifred shook her head. “I don’t know how you feel, Gerry, but honestly, I couldn’t be friends with an Indian girl and I don’t think she ought to be in so exclusive a school as Primrose Hall, If Miss Winthrop were anyone but Miss Winthrop I believe some of the girls’ parents would have complained of Olive before this, but that lady is just as likely to fire us all out and to keep just this one girl, as she seems to have such an unaccountable fancy for her. Look here, Gerry, you and I used to be good friends and Jean Bruce can’t be elected, so why don’t you give up working for her and come over to my side and not mix yourself up with this other business? You may be sorry for it some day and Jean hasn’t a ghost of a show.”
Gerry jumped several feet off her couch. “Don’t you be so plague-taked sure, Winifred Graham, that Jean Bruce hasn’t a chance for the election! And not for anything would I go back on her now! Besides, I have a plan that, has just come into my mind this very second that may straighten things out for Jean most beau-ti-fully.”
CHAPTER XIII
THE APPEAL TO OLIVE
And Gerry’s plan was nothing more or less than to make a direct, personal appeal to Olive, asking her to aid in the fight for Jean by making a sacrifice of herself. True, Gerry did not know that Olive was as yet completely in the dark about Jean’s refusal to join the Theta sorority because of the failure of the girls to include her in the invitation, but even with this knowledge Gerry would hardly have been deterred from her plan. For how could it help Olive to have Jean wreck her own chances on her account nor how could it alter her classmates’ attitude toward her?
The Monday following her talk with Winifred, Gerry overtook Olive, as both girls were leaving their class room, and coming up close behind her leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Oh, Olive, I wonder if you could have a little talk with me this afternoon on strictly private business; I wish to talk to you quite alone.”
Although Gerry had never been so rude and cold to her as some of her other classmates, at this attitude of unexpected intimacy, Olive appeared surprised. She had no idea that Gerry could be wishing to speak to her of the class election, for Jean had carefully excluded all mention of this subject from the conversation in their own rooms and no one else had seen fit to mention the subject to Olive.
“Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to see you at any time,” Olive nodded, pleased that Gerry should wish to be with her alone. “Why not come up to our sitting room right now, as our lessons are over for the afternoon?”
But with a great appearance of secrecy Gerry shook her curly head. “No, I am afraid Jean might be bobbing in there at any minute,” she confided, “and I particularly don’t want her to know just at present what I wish to say to you.”
“Suppose I ask Miss Hunt to let us take a walk together without any one else?” Olive next proposed; “I am sure she will.”
Half an hour later the two girls, well away from Primrose Hall, were walking through the nearby woods and yet Gerry had not mentioned the subject of conversation they had come forth to discuss.