A grateful look was flashed at her, but Jean moved first toward Gerry.
“I am awfully sorry I was cross, Gerry,” she murmured, “because of course I know you are being good as gold to me and only acting for what you believe to be my good, but I don’t think either you or Olive in the least understand my position. I am not staying out of the Theta Society for Olive’s sake; I am staying out for my own.”
“But that can’t be possible,” both the other girls urged.
“Gerry Ferrows,” Jean said, “I want you to do me a favor. I want you to think quietly of what your opinion of another girl would be (leaving me out of the case entirely) if that girl should win out in a big matter like a class election by turning her back on her best friend and more than her friend, her almost sister. And you, Olive, suppose you had no part in this business at all, or suppose you and I had changed places, what would you think of a girl who would say to another group of girls, ‘Yes, thank you, I am very grateful indeed to you for permitting me to enjoy your superior society, even if you do think the people whom I love and who belong to my family are not worthy of association with you?’ I, of course, am humbly delighted to be a renegade and a traitor if you will just let me play with you.” And Jean’s brown eyes were flashing and her face was pale, yet she laughed a little at her own fierceness.
“Oh, I won’t pretend that I didn’t think at first of doing just this thing that you girls are begging me to do,” she went on, “and I argued it all out in my own mind that I wouldn’t hurt Olive by joining the Theta’s, but I never could persuade myself that such an action would not hurt me. See here, dear,” and Jean’s usually merry lips were trembling as she spoke again directly to Olive. “How could it injure you for me to forget our friendship and happy years together at the ranch, for wouldn’t you still be true and loyal and devoted to me? But poor little me, and what would I be? Wouldn’t I have to live with myself day time and night time knowing exactly what kind of a wretch I was? No, sir-ee,” and here Jean struck a highly dramatic attitude, pretending to slip her fingers inside an imaginary coat. “In the words of that famous gentleman, whether Henry Clay, or Patrick Henry, or Daniel Webster, I can’t remember, ‘I would rather be right than President!’”
“Bravo, Jean,” called Jessica’s voice from the doorway, “I take off my hat to you! Gerry, Olive, please don’t argue this question any further with Jean, for she has just said something that we all know to be a fact: ‘To thine own self be true. Thou canst not then be false to any man.’”
Gerry cleared her throat, pulling at her short hair rather like an embarrassed boy than a clever girl of seventeen. “All right, Jean,” she conceded; “maybe you are right, and of course you are if you feel as you say you do, so I shall not try to make you change your opinion.”
But Olive, equally miserable and unconvinced, standing alone in the center of the room, said to Jean, “You are dreadfully good, but I don’t care what you say, I simply can’t allow you to sacrifice yourself in the way you are doing for me. I must find out how to prevent it and I warn you now that I shall write to Jack and have her ask you to change your mind.”
Jean only laughed. “It would be so like old Jack to ask a fellow to be a poor sport,” she teased, “but for goodness sake don’t let us talk about this tedious subject any longer and do let us put the kettle on and all take tea, for I have talked so much I am nearly dying of thirst.”
Around a small table the four girls placed themselves, the ranch girls getting out their tins of cakes and chocolates kept for just such occasions, and nothing more of a serious character was said until they were all comfortably sipping their tea. And then Jean turned to Olive.