Despite the late hour at which members of the Lookout Club had retired
on the previous night, nine o'clock Saturday morning saw them gathered
at the day nursery, for a final survey of it before the house warming
began, which was scheduled to commence at two o'clock that afternoon. As
Saturday was a half-holiday for the mill folks, the girls had chosen the
time of the opening with a view to giving the mothers of the children,
who would partake of its hospitality, an opportunity to inspect the
nursery and offer the names of their little ones for registration. A
buffet luncheon, contributed by the mothers of the Lookouts was to be
one of the features of the occasion, and Mrs. Macy, Mrs. Dean, Mrs.
Harding and Miss Susan Allison were to act as patronesses. Mignon La
Salle was the only member of the club who did not put in an appearance.
Why she had chosen to absent herself no one of the Lookouts knew nor did
they greatly care.
"I guess Mignon feels rather queer about facing us to-day after what
happened last night," Jerry Macy confided to Marjorie, when the close of
the morning brought no sign of the French girl.
"I was truly sorry for her," Marjorie answered with evident sincerity.
"She must have been terribly embarrassed."
"Not she," sniffed Jerry. "She was probably mad as hops, though, to
think her scheme fell flat. She must have telephoned her house while we
were all upstairs dancing. It was silly in her to do a thing like that.
It's funny, though, what a crush she's always had on Laurie. She's cared
about him ever since her grammar school days, but he has never liked
her. He's awfully fond of Connie, though."
"I know it." Marjorie smiled. "Somehow one never thinks of either Connie
or Laurie as being foolish or sentimental."
"That's because Connie is so sensible and nice about Laurie," explained
Jerry. "She just treats him as a boy friend and makes him understand it.
Laurie is different from Hal and the Crane. He's a musician and has
associated a good deal with older men. That makes him seem ever so much
older than he really is. Naturally he is more serious and grown-up. He
and Hal are almost the same age, but Hal seems younger than Laurie.
Danny Seabrooke and the Crane are more Hal's speed, but Hal thinks
there's no one quite like Laurie."
"Nearly all the Weston High boys are splendid," praised Marjorie. Her
glance happening to stray to Lucy Warner who stood across the room,
talking to Muriel Harding, she said anxiously: "Jerry, do you think
anyone said anything last night to Lucy to hurt her feelings? Just
before she went home I tried to talk to her and she hardly answered me.
She hasn't more than spoken to me this morning, either."
"She was pretty icy to me when she said good night," returned Jerry
unconcernedly. "That's just her way. She's like February weather, always
thawing and freezing. I wouldn't worry about her moods. You certainly
have been nice to her. Very likely she felt a little out of things last
night because she didn't know how to dance. We ought to teach her. Go
and propose it to her, Marjorie. Muriel has just left her. Now is your
chance. I'll stay here. You can talk to her better alone."
Suiting the action to the word, Marjorie crossed the room to Lucy. "I've
something very special to ask you, Lucy," she said, adopting a casual
tone.
Lucy frowned portentously. "What is it?" she questioned in cool, terse
fashion. Mignon's treacherous counsel still rang in her ears. Her moody
frown changed to a flash of interest, however, as Marjorie stated that
she and Jerry were anxious to teach her to dance. Something in
Marjorie's gay, gracious manner sent a swift rush of shamed color to
Lucy's white cheeks. Marjorie had befriended her and she had repaid her
kindness by allowing suspicion to warp her belief in this delightful
girl.
"I'd love to learn to dance," she heard herself saying heartily. Then on
sudden impulse she continued almost pleadingly, "You are really my
friend, aren't you, Marjorie?"
"Why, of course!" The answer conveyed absolute truth. "What makes you
ask me that, Lucy?" Marjorie eyed her steadily.
Lucy's color rose higher. "I'm glad you asked me that. I wanted to tell
you something, but I didn't know whether I'd better. It sounds gossipy."
In a few words she related what Mignon had said to her. "I shouldn't
have listened to Mignon," she apologized. "I tried to leave her, but she
kept on talking."
Patent vexation held Marjorie speechless for an instant. When she spoke
it was in a firm, almost stern manner. "I have only one thing to say,
Lucy. You must not allow Mignon to make you feel that I am not your
friend. Please remember that I am and hope always to be. I haven't the
least idea what she meant by saying that she knew me to be deceitful.
She evidently meant me though she didn't mention my name. I despise
deceit, and I have always been straightforward with you."
"I believe you," Lucy earnestly assured her. "Hereafter I shall have
nothing whatever to say to Mignon."
"You must do as you think best about that. I am glad you came to me
frankly. If you are in doubt at any time about me, please come to me and
say so. Misunderstandings are dreadful." Marjorie's mind had harked back
to the memory of the cloud that had once shadowed hers and Mary
Raymond's friendship.
On the way home to luncheon that day, in company with Jerry, Irma and
Constance, she was unusually quiet. Her thoughts reverted gloomily to
the conversation between herself and Lucy Warner. It had shown her
plainly that no amount of club ethics could stop Mignon's spiteful
tongue. Her crafty attack on Lucy was merely a beginning. Into what sort
of tangle her mischief-making proclivities might yet involve the
Lookouts was a question which time alone would answer.
The pleasant excitement of the afternoon went far toward banishing
Marjorie's dark forebodings. The house warming was a signal success,
thanks to the grateful eagerness with which the residents of the mill
district received the kindly effort made in their behalf. Altogether
thirty youngsters were enrolled as members of the day nursery, and their
mothers showed a shy, pathetic pride and pleasure in the new movement
which greatly touched their young hostesses. They did hungry justice to
the dainty luncheon prepared for them, and, their diffidence gradually
vanishing under the hospitable treatment they were receiving, they
talked and laughed in friendly fashion with the patronesses and the
Lookouts.
Greatly to the surprise of her fellow members, Mignon deigned to lend
her elaborately-dressed self to the house warming. It was well into the
afternoon when she appeared, haughty and supercilious. As the majority
of the humble guests knew her by sight, her arrival had a somewhat
dampening effect upon them. The knowledge that she was the daughter of
one of Sanford's wealthiest residents rather over-awed them, and her
grandiose manner served to deepen the effect. Although she was fairly
affable to her schoolmates, a hint of scorn lurked in her roving black
eyes, which told its own story to those who best understood her ways. No
one of the band of earnest workers honestly regretted her departure
which occurred not more than half an hour after her arrival.
Before five o'clock the humble guests had departed with much handshaking
and friendly bobbing of heads, leaving the house to the Lookouts. The
patronesses left shortly afterward and the bevy of girls turned to with
commendable energy to spend a merry hour setting the nursery to rights.
"Let's sit down at the table in these cunning little chairs and have a
consultation," proposed Muriel. "I am really tired out. This has been a
strenuous afternoon, not to mention last night."
"Not for me," was Jerry's discouraged comment. "One of those playhouse
affairs would last about ten seconds if I attempted to sit in it."
"We'd better be moving toward home," suggested Daisy Griggs. "It's
almost six o'clock. I am going to a musicale this evening and I mustn't
be late for it." Daisy made a determined march for the stairs, and
disappeared in search of hat and coat.
"Daisy is a very energetic person," laughed Irma. "I am going home, eat
my dinner and go straight to bed. I've been sleepy all day."
"So have I," complained Rita Talbot. "I am glad I don't have to be a
spook the year round. Spooks must lose a lot of sleep."
"I suppose they must. I never interviewed a real one, so I can't say
positively," giggled Susan.
Following Daisy's example the Lookouts trooped upstairs in search of
their various belongings, exchanging light nonsense as they went. Soon
afterward they descended ready for the street. Marjorie, Jerry and
Constance lingered while Jerry locked the door, depositing the key in a
secret refuge of its own, the location of which was known to the woman
who had been engaged to come early Monday morning in order to receive
her small charges.
"I wish you and Connie would come over to our house to-night," invited
Jerry. "Hal, Laurie and Dan will be on the job, I mean on the scene. Hal
has a brilliant idea that he thinks might interest the Lookouts. He
won't tell me what it is, either. Unless you two are kindly disposed
enough to come over, I'll have to take my curiosity out in guessing."
"I'll have to ask my superior officer," demurred Marjorie. "Captain may
think that I ought to stay at home this evening. I'll do some expert
coaxing just to please you, Jerry."
"My aunt may also be of the same mind about me," said Constance. "Still,
I think I can come."
"Saved!" Jerry clasped her fat hands in exaggerated thankfulness. "I see
I stand some chance of having my curiosity satisfied."
"Can't you telephone your aunt and stay to dinner with me, Connie?"
begged Marjorie.
"Of course she can. That's a good idea. If your aunt says 'yes' then so
will Mrs. Dean," calculated crafty Jerry. "As Professor Fontaine
beautifully puts it, 'We weel conseedaire the mattaire as settled.'"
Mention of the little professor reminded Constance and Marjorie of an
unusually long translation for Monday recitation, at which neither of
them had looked. The talk immediately drifted into school channels to
continue in that strain until Jerry left them.
After saying good-bye to her, Marjorie and Constance strolled silently
along for a little.
"Marjorie," Constance's clear enunciation startled her chum from brief
reverie. "I am afraid we can never be of much help to Mignon."
Marjorie flashed a half-startled glance toward Constance. She wondered
what new quirk in Mignon's behavior had occasioned this observation.
"Why?" was all she said.
"I've been waiting for a chance to tell you something I heard this
afternoon. It was Gertrude Aldine who mentioned it. She said that Mignon
told her last night that Jerry had hired Veronica to come to the party
and do that shadow dance."
"_Hired_ Veronica?" Marjorie cried out in nettled amazement. "That is
perfectly ridiculous and not true. But how did Mignon happen to know
that it was Veronica who danced? Only Jerry, Hal, Laurie, you and I knew
it. Even I didn't recognize her on the screen. I don't see how Mignon
could have."
"She must have, or else----" Constance paused significantly.
"Or else what?"
"I hate to say it, but Mignon must somehow have overheard you and Jerry
when you were talking to Veronica in the back parlor. I saw her leave
the ball room soon after you girls did. I saw her come back again after
you had returned. I didn't pay any particular heed to it then. You see I
didn't know about Veronica until you told me last night after the dance.
Even then I didn't connect her with you girls, although I guessed from
what the La Salles' chauffeur said to Mignon that she must have gone
downstairs and telephoned her home." A tiny smile played about
Constance's lips as she recalled Mignon's defeat. "When Gertrude
mentioned what Mignon had said about Veronica, the whole thing flashed
across me in a twinkling. Gertrude promised not to tell anyone else. I
know _she_ won't. But Mignon will circulate it throughout the school. Of
course she won't mention, though, how she came by the information."
"It was contemptible in her if she really did spy upon us," was
Marjorie's indignant outburst. "I don't see how she could have managed
to, though. I didn't see a soul downstairs while we were there. If she
does gossip it in school, Veronica won't care. She will only laugh."
"But Jerry will care," reminded Constance gravely. "As soon as she hears
it she will go to Mignon and make a fuss about it. You know what she
said that day at Sargent's. She meant it, too. We can't allow our
president to resign from the club."
"We will tell Jerry about it tonight," decreed Marjorie. "It is better
for her to hear it from us than from someone else. She will be cross, of
course, but she won't resign. Something will have to be done about
Mignon, though. She's not keeping her word of honor to the club. This is
not the first offense. I can't explain what I mean by that because I
promised a certain person I wouldn't tell what she told me. Someone will
have to go to her and remind her of her duty to the club. If she keeps
on saying such hateful things about others, outsiders will form a bad
opinion of us all."
"As president, it's Jerry's duty to tell her," asserted Constance. "No
doubt she will wish to do it. That's just where the trouble lies. She
will be apt to tell Mignon very bluntly that she must either stop
gossiping or resign from the club. Mignon will simply snap her fingers
at Jerry and Jerry herself will resign rather than be in the same club
with Mignon."
"Very likely," nodded Marjorie. Constance's theory entirely coincided
with her own. "If we talk things over with Jerry beforehand it may make
a good deal of difference. Although I wouldn't say it to anyone but you
or Captain, I've lately come to the conclusion that trying to help
Mignon is a waste of time, energy and peace of mind. It's like building
a sand castle on the beach. Before one has time to finish it the sea
washes over it and sweeps it away. If it hadn't been for that affair at
Riverview last year, I would never have troubled myself about her again.
Do you realize, Connie, that this is the fourth year that we have had to
contend with that girl's mischief-making?" Marjorie's question quivered
with righteous resentment.
"Yes, but she has never been really successful in a single piece of
mischief she has planned," reminded Constance. "She's caused us a good
deal of unhappiness, but in the end she has been the one to suffer
defeat. It generally happens that way with persons like her. They may
seem to succeed for a while, but always there comes a day when they have
to pay for the trouble they make others. As I have said to you before, I
am sorry for Mignon. Honestly, I don't think we can ever help her much,
but she might better be in the club than out of it."
"Then you think that no matter what she may do we ought still to be
patient with her and make allowances?" Marjorie's query indicated
profound respect for Constance's broad-minded opinion. It made her feel
as though her brief flash of resentment of Mignon had been unworthy of
herself.
"Yes;" came the unhesitating reply. "What else is there to do? You and
I, in particular, made ourselves responsible when we insisted that
Mignon should be asked to join the Lookouts. As good soldiers we have no
right to shirk that responsibility."
"I am not going to shirk it." Marjorie squared her shoulders with an
energy that bespoke fresh purpose. "After all I said to the girls about
Mignon joining the club, it was cowardly in me to complain so bitterly
about her. You've made me realize all over again that we ought to look
out for Mignon, because it's the right thing to do, not because of our
promise to her father."
"I'll stand by you." Stopping in the middle of the walk, Constance
offered her hand to Marjorie in pledge of her offer to stand by.
Both girls laughed as they went through with the little ceremony of
shaking hands, little realizing that their compact would, later, turn
out to be no laughing matter.