PLEDGED TO STAND BY
“What?” Jerry allowed the cake knife in her hand to drop squarely upon
the cake. She had been poising it over the big square delicacy
preparatory to replenishing the cake plate. In her surprise she vented
Leslie Cairns’ own pet ejaculation.
“Good night!” Muriel Harding pretended collapse in her chair.
“I am afraid she is courting the impossible.” Vera Mason shook her head.
“There’s something in your tone, Beauty, that makes me think it might
not be impossible.” Leila was regarding Marjorie with a quizzical smile.
“Yet for the life of me I cannot see how it might happen.”
“I’m not in the least sure that it could,” was Marjorie’s candid reply.
“I had thought that as soon as Prexy came back to the campus I would go
to him and put in a plea for Leslie. I have in mind certain arguments
that might appeal to him. In thinking about her I have realized, that,
if he gave her permission to enroll again she would have to go through a
good deal of unpleasantness on the campus. I realized it more when Leila
was telling us about what Miss Crawford had said.”
“It might not be so terribly hard for her, Marjorie. She wouldn’t try,
of course, to live on the campus. Her father would undoubtedly open
Carden Hedge.” Ronny took this cheerful view of the matter.
“No; Leslie says if she could try her senior year over she would not
risk living at the Hedge for fear a lot of things about her old lawless
days on the campus might come up and be talked over. Then her father
would probably be criticized for her bad behavior. She says she couldn’t
bear that.”
“She could live at the Hamilton House and get away with it,” Muriel said
confidently. “She could arrange her program so as to go from one class
to another without having to stay on the campus a moment longer than
recitation hours.”
“She made satisfactory recitations in the old days,” Leila remarked
musingly. “I used to wonder how she did it. She was always out in her
car or entertaining at Baretti’s, or the Colonial.”
“She was within two months of being graduated from Hamilton when the
sword fell,” Vera reminded.
“The trouble is,” Marjorie drew a regretful breath, “she has already
been to Prexy about it.”
“She has?” rose a concerted cry.
Marjorie nodded soberly. “He wouldn’t listen to her,” she continued.
“She was so hurt and confused at his brusqueness that she didn’t try to
explain at all why she wanted to come back to the campus. That was the
very thing that might have influenced President Matthews to give her
another trial.”
“This _is_ news,” Leila emphasized. “How can one help but admire Leslie
Cairns for her courage in facing Prexy. I believe now she may turn out
well.”
Marjorie smiled. She wondered what Leila would say could she have even
an inkling of the wonderful plan Leslie had in view for her. “She is
brave as can be,” she agreed. “I feel as though she hadn’t had a fair
opportunity to soften the hard heart of Prexy. That is the reason I am
going to brave Prexy in his den all by myself. Miss Susanna offered to
go with me. Then we talked it over and decided I had best go alone. What
do you think, Lucy? Is there any possibility that Prexy might change his
mind about Leslie? You know him better than we.”
“Yes, Luciferous Warniferous, high and exalted scribe of the Prexy
realm, speak, and tell us the worst,” Muriel made a commanding gesture
at which Lucy merely giggled.
“I don’t know what to say.” Her small face suddenly sobered. “Prexy is
the kindest man I know until he has been really shocked by something
that someone has done. Then he grows terribly stern. He was angrier
about the trouble Leslie Cairns made between him and Miss Remson than
the hazing. Yet he will do more for you, Marjorie, than he would for
almost anyone else. You may be able to persuade him to give Leslie
another trial. But—” She came to an abrupt pause, her green eyes
fastened peculiarly upon Marjorie’s face with eloquent significance.
“I understand you, Lucy. You are right. I shouldn’t care to have Prexy
offer Leslie another trial just to please me. The only way for him to
offer it to her is because he has become convinced that it is the best
thing to do.”
“And that will be your job, Bean—to convince Prexy that second thoughts
are best. Such an easy little task,” Jerry declared satirically. “You
certainly have had some splendid jobs since you came to Hamilton. I feel
the inspiration stealing over me to jingle. Ahem! Aha! Bzzz-zz!
Whir-r-r! Br-rr-p!”
“No easy task, it is to ask,
Our Prexy to relent,
Smile on, serene, undaunted Bean,
Until he has unbent.”
“That is good advice, Jeremiah. I shall proceed to follow it,” laughed
Marjorie.
“And I shall proceed to copy the jingle.” Leila confiscated another
sheet of paper from Lucy’s notebook and jotted down the jingle. She
smiled widely to herself as she wrote. Leila had a plan of her own
regarding Jerry’s jingles which she intended to carry out presently.
“I shall go to see President Matthews as soon as he returns from the
shore. That will be the last of the week. I’ll wait until Monday to make
my call,” Marjorie announced decisively.
“If I were you I should go to his house, Marjorie,” Lucy advised in her
serious fashion. “It’s more quiet at his home office. At Hamilton Hall
he has so many interruptions. Persons are continually passing in and out
of his office.”
“That was what I thought. And if I should succeed—” Marjorie broke off.
Her brown eyes traveled from one face to another in the group. “I was
thinking of what Muriel said about Leslie hurrying away from the campus
as soon as her classes were over. As good Travelers we couldn’t let her
do that. If she comes back to the senior class we must stand by her on
all occasions. I know a way in which we could help her a great deal. We
could ask her to belong to the Travelers.”
“Whu-u-u!” Muriel emitted a prolonged sigh of surprise. A united murmur
went up from the others.
“Is that a murmur of objection?” Marjorie asked with a little laugh.
“No,” was the ascending hearty protest.
“You simply stunned us for a second, Beauty,” Leila said reassuringly.
“Stop and think if it is not an amazing idea that Leslie Cairns should
become a member of the Travelers. Consider all the past troubles she has
caused that worthy organization.” She showed her white teeth in an
amused smile.
“Do you mean _our_ Nineteen?” Muriel could not keep a faint note of
amazement, bordering on disapproval out of her question.
“She couldn’t very well belong to either of the other chapters,” Jerry
pointed out. “The only members of last year’s Travelers at Hamilton to
be here this year will be Phil Moore and Barbara Severn. Oh, yes. Anna
Towne is coming back to teach English Literature. The new Travelers were
all chosen before college closed last June, weren’t they?” She turned
inquiringly to Marjorie.
“Yes. The only Travelers’ chapter Leslie could very well belong to would
be ours. Of course all this is only tentative. If Prexy declines to do
anything for Leslie it would be of no use to ask her to join the
Travelers.”
“The Board would have to give consent as well as Prexy to her coming
back,” Vera interposed.
“Yes, but I dare say the Board members would if President Matthews
recommended another trial for her,” Marjorie answered.
“Did you ever hear of an ex-Hamilton student being permitted to return
to Hamilton again?” Ronny asked dubiously.
“No, I never have. Perhaps this will be the first case of the kind on
the Hamilton records,” Marjorie replied brightly. “I wish you girls
would tell me exactly the way you feel about helping Leslie Cairns if
she should come back to college.”
“Just the way you do, I hope,” Vera made loyal return.
“It is a fine diversion you are providing for my old age,” was Leila’s
mock-enthusiastic response. “But I can stand it, if you can, Beauty.”
“Yours truly.” Muriel thus pledged her devotion. “Doris would be glad of
it. She really cares a good deal for Leslie Cairns.”
“You should have more faith in your pals,” Ronny rebuked with simulated
severity. “When have we ever gone back on you?”
“I wish there was something I could say to President Matthews that would
help,” was Lucy’s regretful cry.
“Is it necessary for me to say, Bean, dear Bean, that I will never
desert you?” Jerry contributed reproachfully.
“You are darling old dears.” Marjorie beamed warmest affection on the
group of white-clad girls who had just sworn fealty afresh to her
standard.
“And you are the same beautiful Beauty that you were five years ago when
you walked into Baretti’s one fine September evening and began the
conquest of Leslie Cairns which has ended in her unconditional
surrender.” Leila was looking a world of affectionate admiration at
Marjorie. “Did I not say to you then, Midget, that Beauty had arrived on
the campus, and that great doings would come to pass?”
“You surely did say it, and that is at least one of your prophesies
which has come true,” Vera made ready response.
“Nonsense. It was not I. It was my faithful Beanstalks. What could I
have done for democracy without them? You are the same splendid Leila
Harper, who worked like mad to make things come right on the campus and
then wouldn’t believe she’d done anything worth while. You see I can say
as much about you as you said about me,” Marjorie triumphantly
retaliated. “Who was it—.”
“Never mind who it was,” Leila cut in hastily. “Let us talk of the
campus. It is a beautiful piece of ground. Is it not?” She inquired of
Marjorie with polite affability. “Have I not heard you say you admire
it?”
“I wish I could see it from my windows at Hamilton Arms,” Marjorie said
half wistfully, though she smiled at Leila’s ridiculous air and
questions. “I do miss you girls and the Hall and the campus dreadfully,
much as I love the Arms. It was fine, you know, to be right in the
middle of the campus, as it were. I shan’t settle down again at the
biography much before the first of November. As soon as Robin comes
back, Page and Dean will have to get busy in the show business again.”
“Robin ought to be here by this time. We received a letter from her just
before we sailed for home in which she wrote that she was coming back to
Hamilton as early as the first of September.” Vera gave out this news as
she hospitably replenished the glasses from the case of ginger ale on
the floor.
“She has probably waited for Phil, and Phil may have been delayed by an
influx of visiting relatives,” was Marjorie’s guess. “The Moores are the
most hospitable of southerners Robin says.”
“It will be a week before the campus begins to be inhabited,” Ronny
predicted. “Then the campus dwellers will arrive in numbers. Did you and
Vera see Doris Monroe while you were abroad, Leila? Of course you had
her Paris address.”
“We spent three days with her in Paris. She was with an aunt in a
cunning little apartment in the Rue de Rivoli. Her father and his party
of explorers have unearthed a buried city in Peru. He will not return to
France for another year.” Vera went on to relate the details of their
visit to Doris Monroe. She ended with: “Doris must be on the way across
the Atlantic now. She was intending to sail for the United States the
first of September.”
“What news from the Bertramites?” asked Muriel.
“None,” replied Leila. “That means you may expect them to come breezing
back to Hamilton any day. Kathie and Lillian will be here on next Friday
evening, according to Kathie’s letter. And now are you not glad that I
would tell you nothing about the campus news last night?” Leila viewed
her friends with indulgently twinkling eyes.
On the previous evening she had laughingly refused to give out a word of
information concerning campus matters. “If Midget and I were to tell you
all the news tonight we should have nothing to entertain you with at the
Hall tomorrow,” she had argued.
Leila’s good-humored inquiry evoked a buzz of laughing rejoinders. “I am
so kind,” she continued, “I will keep on giving you the news. Besides
you girls and ourselves there are only four other students back at the
Hall; Miss Peters and Miss Finch, those two nice freshies who had 14
last year, and Miss Keller and Miss Ryan, the two sophs who roomed next
to Miss Peyton and Miss Carter. They are sophs and juniors now, but
their hats will continue to fit their heads, I believe. Let me see.
Midget and I have only half unpacked our trunks. We have done a great
deal of visiting at the Arms, and no work.”
“Tomorrow we are going to clean house and unpack and buy some plates at
the ten cent store. Lead really useful lives, you know,” Vera announced
with joking energy.
“Midget is that ambitious!” Leila became colloquially Celtic.
Vera’s light announcement brought forth plenty of similar jesting
resolves from the others. With conversation flowing in a purely personal
channel Leslie Cairns’ name was not mentioned again. Having pledged
their word to do all they could to help her six of the reunited
Travelers were only too well content to allow the subject to drop. They
had not yet come to the stage of regarding Leslie from Marjorie’s
great-spirited viewpoint.
Of them all Vera was the nearest to Marjorie in tolerance. She was
willing to help Leslie for Leslie’s sake; not because of her regard for
Marjorie. With the others it was solely on Marjorie’s account that they
had agreed to stand by Leslie, should future need of their support
arise. Jerry and Ronny, the only ones besides Marjorie who knew of
Leslie’s plan for Leila, had at heart not yet entirely forgiven Leslie
for past offenses against Marjorie. Muriel Harding would probably never
cherish any degree of liking for Leslie, no matter how well she might do
in future. Muriel had a peculiarly obdurate side of character in spite
of her natural sunnyness of disposition.
As for Leila, only Leila herself knew how greatly she still detested
Leslie Cairns. Though she had been first to credit Leslie for her
courage in seeking President Matthews, even this incident had not
altered in the slightest degree her basic dislike for the financier’s
once lawless daughter. Her secret aversion for Leslie had not died with
the knowledge of the other girl’s change of heart.
Once before Leila had found occasion to admire Leslie’s moral courage,
tardily as it had shown itself. This was on the day in spring when she
and Marjorie had encountered Leslie Cairns on the road to Orchard Inn
and the latter had halted their car to make brave confession to
Marjorie. In spite of it Leila had not warmed toward the penitent then.
Nor had this latest report of Leslie’s courage stirred in Leila any real
sympathy. Leila would not have admitted such an attitude of mind, even
to Vera. For Marjorie’s sake she was resolved to hide her dislike for
Leslie so securely that no one should even suspect her of it.
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