THE ONLY WAY
The junior class election taught Julia Peyton one unflattering truth.
She was far from popular enough to win a nomination to the class
presidency. Augusta Forbes directed her efforts, heart and soul toward
the nomination of Doris Monroe. Doris as zealously rooted for Calista
Wilmot, who had come to be greatly liked among the Hamilton students.
Calista won the nomination by a majority of five votes and was
subsequently elected president.
Notwithstanding the fact that Julia Peyton had not “a look in” at the
presidency she was not without sympathetic support so far as a number of
the juniors at Wayland Hall were concerned. These had been the sophs of
the previous year of whom Leila Harper had signally disapproved. Then
she had rated the Hall as a house divided against itself. With the
opening again of the college she had not changed her opinion.
Counting Leslie Cairns she could number only fourteen staunch democrats
at the Hall. There were now eight freshmen at the Hall whose politics
were yet unannounced. Of the twenty-three other residents there was but
one on whom she could rely as a neutral. This was Miss Duncan, a tall
girl with a ministerial air who had succeeded in passing the set of
“Brooke Hamilton Perfect Examination Papers” and had been awarded the
special room at Wayland Hall set aside for this purpose. It had been
vacant since Katherine Langly had attained that honor.
Hardly had the stir attending the junior election died away when Julia
Peyton began agitating the subject of the select social sorority which
she had been impatiently waiting to organize. She and Clara had
privately decided that it should be called the “Orchid” Club—the name
typifying, in her opinion, the select and exclusive.
Mildred Ferguson, the freshman in 17 of whom Julia had glowingly spoken
to Clara, had hailed the idea of the club with flattering enthusiasm.
She was a small, slim girl with a pair of laughing blue eyes, a bright
brown bob and a bold boyish face. She drove her own car, wore clothes of
distinctive smartness and regarded everything in the way of luxury as
having been produced for her benefit. She had had everything she fancied
from babyhood. In consequence she never paused to consider anyone except
herself. She was not interested in college except as a necessary bridge
which had to be crossed into Society.
She soon found the poise of the post graduates at Wayland Hall not to
her taste. The Bertram girls bored her, and she stood in secret awe of
Doris Monroe and Leslie Cairns. Miss Duncan she dubbed the Eternal Dig.
She found the more artificial standards of Julia Peyton, Clara Carter
and their junior supporters more to her liking. She enjoyed having a
“stand-in” with the juniors at the Hall and professed animated interest
in the organizing of the Orchid Club. At heart she was so thoroughly
snobbish as to agree with Julia’s sentiments in regard to it.
Due to one delay or another, it was the early part of November before
the Orchid Club, consisting of twenty-six members, held its first
meeting in the living room of the Hall, Julia having haughtily requested
the use of it from Miss Remson beforehand. To her deep satisfaction
Julia was elected president of the club. Mildred Ferguson, however, won
the vice-presidency, and with it Clara Carter’s undying resentment.
There were no other offices to be filled. The Orchid Club was to be of a
purely social nature, with no need of a secretary or treasurer. There
was to be a dinner or luncheon twice each week at the expense of one or
another of the club members, and a monthly meeting in the living room of
the Hall.
“The Screech Owl has gone into local politics and is now a president,”
Muriel breezily informed Leslie Cairns and Doris Monroe as she entered
Doris’s and her room late one November afternoon to find the two deep in
a discussion of psycho-analysis.
Leslie had taken up psychology and political science, the two subjects
she had had on her senior program at the time of her expulsion from
Hamilton. Thus far, since her return to Hamilton, she had wondered at
the lack of unpleasant stir which had marked her reappearance on the
campus as a student. It seemed that she might, after all, be fated to
escape the harsh criticism which she felt would be justly her due. She
had been agreeably disappointed in that Julia Peyton had not, to her
knowledge, brought up against her as a matter of gossip the eventful
night of the Rustic Romp.
“Julia Peyton a president?” Doris Monroe turned her blue-green eyes
amusedly upon Muriel. “Of what, may I ask?”
“Of the Orchid Club. Isn’t that a select name. It suggests luxury,
doesn’t it? Something like the Sans—I beg your pardon, Leslie.” Muriel
checked herself, looking comically contrite. “I never think of you now
as a San,” she went on in further apology.
“Don’t mind me,” Leslie waved off the apology. “You are exactly right in
what you just said,” she continued half grimly. “I have been keeping a
wary eye upon Miss Peyton and Miss Carter since I came to the Hall. I
fully expected they might start trouble for me. I am amazed to think
they haven’t. Leila is right, too, in saying the Hall is a house divided
against itself. It’s not our side of it, though, that has put down a
dividing line. By ‘our side’ I mean the Travelers, the Bertram girls and
Doris. This Miss Peyton isn’t the sort of menace to the Hall that I used
to be.” She smiled her slow smile. “She is like Lillian Walbert.”
“Right-o,” Muriel agreed with emphasis. “I’d forgotten all about her.
Julia Peyton is more aggressive, though. Miss Walbert’s favorite
amusement was gossiping, just the same. Only she thought it was
automobiling.”
Muriel broke into a merry little run of laughter, an accompaniment to
her mischievous statement regarding Lillian Walbert as a motorist.
“She was the worst flivver at driving a car that I ever recall having
seen,” Leslie said, her black eyes twinkling reminiscently. She was not
likely to forget the many ridiculous situations in which Lillian figured
at various times and points on Hamilton Highway as a result of her
fatuous belief in herself as a driver.
“A gossip is never anything either clever, or useful,” Doris Monroe
observed with disdainful wisdom. “Julia Peyton is really quite stupid.
She isn’t consistent, even in her villainy. She never sticks to one
story. This isn’t intended as back-biting. I told her as much last
spring. It is too bad she happened to be the one you tripped up with
your umbrella, Leslie, at the Romp last spring. But I wouldn’t let it
worry me. Julia Peyton always over-reaches herself. If I should chance
to hear any spiteful remarks from her of you—” Doris paused, smiling
with dangerous sweetness.
“Goldie to the rescue. Thank you, good pal.” Leslie flashed her a
grateful glance. “I can fight my own fights. I’m not exactly crazy to
get into the limelight here at the Hall, on my father’s account. Still,
I am not an ex-student who came back a doormat,” she declared with dry
significance.
She rose, smiled her slow smile at her companions and walked to the
door. “See you later,” she nodded. She opened the door and was gone.
“Oh, goodness.” Muriel collapsed into a chair, self-vexation plainly
evident on her pretty features. “I shouldn’t have made that slip about
the Sans. I am afraid I’ve hurt Leslie’s feelings.”
“No, you haven’t.” Doris shook a positive head. “I know Leslie better
than you. She’s worried about something; probably about Miss Remson. She
is afraid, that, if Miss Peyton should begin gossiping about her, Miss
Remson might be blamed for admitting her again to the Hall to board.
That’s why I just said to her that I’d fight for her.”
“So will Miss Remson. She can fight her own battles, and Leslie’s too,”
was Muriel’s quick assurance.
In Room 15 Leslie was at that moment dejectedly considering the very
contingency Doris had mentioned to Muriel. Out of her long leadership of
the Sans Soucians she had derived at least one benefit. She had learned
to read character with surprising accuracy. A few days residence at
Wayland Hall had put her in possession of the knowledge that Mildred
Ferguson, rather than Julia Peyton, was the real promoter of the Orchid
Club. Leslie had taken reflective stock of the self-assured
smartly-attired freshman. Julia would be the club president in name
only. Mildred would be the real power behind the throne. Mildred
reminded her of Lola Elster, an ingrate whom she had boosted to campus
popularity in the old days. Lola had had one commendable trait, however.
She had ever tended strictly to her own affairs. Nor could any one
persuade her to join any kind of campus conspiracy. She had “played
safe” invariably to a disloyal degree. Mildred resembled her only in
point of selfishness.
Leslie shrewdly rated Mildred as quarrel-seeking and gossiping, provided
she might gain by adopting such a course. She was more formidable than
Julia because she had a deceiving, attractive air of good-fellowship
which she kept well over her hard, self-seeking nature.
What Leslie longed now to do was to make friendly overtures to Mildred
before she should succeed in egging shallow, spiteful Julia Peyton on to
“stir up a big fuss at the Hall.” Leslie was satirically confident that
she could, if she should try, quickly and effectually grow chummy with
Mildred because of Peter Cairns’ millions. She could soon influence
Mildred to desert Julia’s banner and enlist under hers. Mildred had
already exhibited calculating signs of friendliness toward her.
Leslie somberly considered the idea from all sides, and shook a stern
head. That was the easy way; the way made possible by money. It was the
way she had always taken in the past. It had invariably brought her
chagrin and failure. Now the rocky road of democracy must be her choice.
Already she foresaw a condition of snobbery sprouting at the Hall which
was similar to the one which Marjorie Dean had once fought to uproot.
“You are in for trouble, Cairns II,” she said aloud. “You can’t go
placidly along about what you think is your business. Your business is
to stand up for democracy—the way Marjorie Dean has always stood up for
it. This Orchid crowd is going to give an imitation of the Sans at the
Hall. I can see that. They need a change of policy. I’ll have to try to
supply it—in the right way.” She laughed mirthlessly. “The right way”
promised to be a rocky road indeed.
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