Miss Slammer's nature was a casual one. Life had been so hard with her that she had long since grown callous under the blows of fate and grimly indifferent to other people's feelings. Somewhere she had heard that Jimmy Lufton was a born orator. At any rate, she thought he could carry off the adventure and her conscience was easy.
At eight o'clock the next morning when the night train from New York pulled into Wellington station, a crowd of well-dressed young women on the platform gazed at the door of the Pullman car with expectant eyes. Judy Kean in a black velvet suit and a big picture hat headed the delegation. Only two passengers descended from the sleeper: a middle-aged, worn-looking woman in shabby black and a young man whose alert brown eyes took in at once the crowd of college girls and Judy, resplendent in velvet and plumes.
"Miss Slammer?" began Judy, intercepting the woman passenger who was looking up and down the platform, somewhat bewildered.
"No, no, that is not my name. I am looking for Miss Windsor," answered the woman nervously.
"Oh," said Judy, rather surprised. "You will find her at her rooms in the Beta Phi House. Take the 'bus up. It's quite a walk."
The woman bowed and hurried over to the 'bus just as the young man with the alert brown eyes came up, hat in hand. Judy noticed at once that his head was large and rather distinguished in outline and that his close-cropped black hair had a tendency to curl.
"You were looking for Miss Slammer?" he asked, speaking to Judy, whose face, as the train receded, showed mingled feelings of disappointment and anger.
"Oh, yes," she replied, startled somewhat at being addressed by a strange young man.
"She couldn't come, and I came down as a substitute," he went on, handing her the note hastily dashed off by the intrepid Beatrice.
Judy's eyes only half took in the words of the note. She read it silently and passed it on to the rest of the delegation.