There could be no doubt that Olive’s amazement was perfectly genuine. “Do you mean to tell me that Jean isn’t a Theta already with the girls tormenting her every minute for weeks to come into the society? Why, I thought that Jean had joined long ago and simply had not mentioned the matter to me because of not wishing to talk of a thing that might make me uncomfortable. I can see now that the girls may not want a class president who isn’t a member of a sorority, and also that if Jean stays out of the societies because of me, it makes us seem more like real sisters instead of just a girl whom Jean’s family is befriending.”
Gerry nodded, mute for once because Olive had put the case too plainly for her either to add to it or to contradict.
“Dear Jean, it is awfully good of her and awfully foolish and just what I should have expected,” she went on. “Please understand that I am very sorry both for Jean’s and Frieda’s sakes that I ever came with them as a student to Primrose Hall and I would have gone away before now only I could not worry Jacqueline Ralston, who is so ill, or our chaperon, Ruth Drew, who must give all her time and thought to Jack. But you see none of us realized that the girls at Primrose Hall would care so much because my birth and past were so different from theirs. In the West these things do not count to so great an extent.”
To her own surprise Gerry Ferrows’ eyes, which were seldom given to this proceeding, suddenly filled with tears. Like Ishmael of old, Olive seemed to her to be cast out into the desert for a crime in which she had no part.
But if this Indian girl had always been shy and sensitive in her attitude before the hurt of her schoolmates’ coldness toward her in times past, at this moment her manner greatly changed. Perhaps because Olive was so quiet and gentle it had looked as though she had no pride, but this is not true, for her pride was of a deeper kind than expresses itself in noise and protest: it was of that unconscious kind associated with high birth and breeding, the pride that suffers wrong and hurt with dignity and in silence.
Now she drew herself up, facing her companion quietly, her dark eyes quite steady, her lips fixed in a firm line and two bright spots of color glowing in her dark cheeks. “I cannot tell you how much I thank you for telling me this about Jean,” she said “and please believe I did not know of it. Of course you wish me to make Jean see the foolishness and the utter uselessness of her sacrifice of herself for me and I surely will. I suppose you must have wondered why I did not do this before.”
And still Gerry continued to find conversation increasingly difficult, though fortunately Olive was saying for her the very things she had intended to say. Shyly Gerry slipped her arm in school-girl fashion across Olive’s shoulder, but the other girl drew herself away, not angrily in the least, but as if she wished neither sympathy nor an apology.
“Do let us go on back to the house at once,” she suggested, “for I must not waste any time before I see Jean, as the election is to take place so soon. If her connection with me should make her lose it I simply don’t know what I should do!”
And forgetting all about the presence of Gerry, Olive started for home, walking with that peculiar grace and swiftness which was so marked a characteristic of her training.
Almost panting, Gerry, who was herself exceedingly athletic, tried to keep up. “You must not be foolish, Olive,” she begged, “and you are a brick! Whatever happens it can’t be your fault if we girls at Primrose Hall are narrow and hateful and blind.” For somehow at this late hour in their acquaintance Gerry Ferrows had begun to realize that whatever unfortunate past Olive Ralston may have had, somehow she had managed to breathe a higher atmosphere than most other girls. In their first intimate talk together Olive had shown no anger against her classmates for their cruelty, no envy of Jean’s popularity or desire to claim her allegiance as a defense against their unkindness. No, she had only been too anxious to sacrifice herself, to make the way straight for Jean. And at this moment quite humbly Gerry would have liked to have begged Olive to allow her to be her friend, only at this time she did not dare. And as they walked on together in silence some lines that she had learned that morning in their Shakespeare class in their reading of “The Winter’s Tale,” came suddenly to her mind.