BARBED ARROWS.
"I don't know which was the most highly polished, his manners or his
shiny bronze face," ejaculated Judy when the door of No. 5 had closed
upon Otoyo and her honorable father.
The small grizzled Japanese gentleman had taken tea American fashion
with his daughter's Quadrangle friends. With punctilious enjoyment he
had eaten everything that was offered to him, cloudbursts, salmon
sandwiches, stuffed olives and chocolate cake. The girls had heard that
raw carp was a favorite Japanese dish, and salmon being the only fish
convenient, they had bought several cans of it in the village in honor
of the national taste.
"Wasn't his English wonderful?" put in Margaret. "He said to me, 'I
entertain exceedingly hopes in my daughter's educationally efforts.'"
"He asked me if I were quadrangular," laughed Edith. "I said no,
quadrilateral."
"The funny part of it was that he used all those big words and spoke
with such a perfect accent and yet he didn't understand anything we
said," observed Molly. "All the time I was telling him how much we loved
Otoyo and what a dear clever child she was, he blinked and smiled and
said: 'Indeed. Is it truly? Exceedingly interestingly.'"
While they were laughing and discussing Otoyo's father, Adele Windsor,
Judy's new bosom friend, walked into the room. She had formed a habit of
entering their room without announcing herself, an unpardonable breach
of etiquette at Wellington, as well it might be anywhere. Lately she had
made herself very much at home at No. 5, lounging on the divan with a
novel between lectures, or occupying the most comfortable chair while
she jotted down notes on a tablet. Nance called her "the intruder" to
Molly, and once she had even ventured to remark to Judy:
"I should think your friend would know that it's customary to knock on a
door before opening it."
"It's because she's never had any privacy," explained Judy
apologetically. "She was brought up in a New York flat and slept on a
parlor sofa all her life until two years ago when her father began
suddenly to make money."
"Being brought up in a parlor ought to give her parlor manners," Nance
thought, but she had not voiced her thought to the sensitive Judy, who
really had not intended to force Adele Windsor on her chums. It was only
that Adele had a way of taking for granted she was _persona grata_, that
Nance thought was rather too free.
Molly, always polite to guests whether welcome or not, greeted Adele
cordially and made her a cup of tea.
"We were just discussing Otoyo Sen's funny little father," she
explained, in order to draw Adele into the conversation. "He's been here
to call--the queerest English!" And Molly repeated some of Mr. Sen's
absurd speeches.
Adele listened with interest. She was always interested in everything,
one might almost say inquisitive, and she had a peculiar way of making
people say things they regretted. Judy, artless soul, had told her
everything she knew long ago. And now, turning her intelligent dark eyes
from one to another and occasionally putting out a pointed question,
Adele succeeded in starting a new discussion on Otoyo's father. With the
most innocent intentions in the world, they imitated his voice and
manner, his stiff formal bows and his funny squeaky laugh.
It was not until later when the friends had scattered to tidy up for
supper that Molly felt any misgivings about having made fun of Otoyo's
father, and these she kept to herself, feeling, indeed, that they were
unworthy of her. Adele had not left with the others. She was to remain
for supper with Judy, and the two girls sat chatting together while
Molly took a cat-nap and Nance began clearing away the tea things.
"You shall not help," she had insisted, when Molly had offered to do her
share. "You are dead tired and I'm not, so go and rest and don't
bother."
Nance's manner was often brusquest when she was tenderest, but Molly
understood her perfectly. She _was_ very tired. What with her new duties
on the _Commune_, club meetings and the pressure of studies, the world
was turning so fast she felt that she might fly off into space at any
moment.
"Professor Green would have scolded me for trying to overdo things," she
was thinking, half sadly. Gradually her body relaxed and her eyelids
dropped. Through the mists of half consciousness she heard the musical
rattle of the tea things, and presently there came the catchy, rather
nasal tones of Adele's voice over the clatter of china and silver.
"I like all your friends, Judy. They are remarkably bright."
"Aren't they a sparkling little coterie," answered Judy proudly.
"Now, Miss Wakefield is a born leader. Of course a leader must have the
gift of gab. She's a great talker, isn't she? Takes the conversation
right into her own hands and keeps it there, doesn't she?"
"Margaret does talk a lot," Judy admitted.
"Too much perhaps for any one not deeply interested, but then of course
I always am. Now, Edith Williams is the brighter of the two, but she
knows it, don't you think so?"
"Well, I suppose she does," replied Judy reluctantly.
"Katherine has more surface brightness, but of course she's superficial,
that is, compared with her sister."
"Edith is the brightest," said Judy.
"Mabel Hinton is all right, but she does dress so atrociously. And those
glasses! Can you imagine how she can wear them?"
Molly felt suddenly hot. She flung the comfort off and sat up
impatiently.
"I should think Judy would have sense enough to see she's being made to
discuss every friend she has," she thought.
"The Intruder" had now commenced on pretty Jessie Lynch. "Awfully jolly
to have so many beaux. Most men-crazy girls have none," she was saying,
when Molly marched into the room. She had not decided what she was going
to say, but she intended to say something.
"How red your face is, Molly, dear," observed Judy carelessly.
"And how fortunate that it's so seldom that way," went on the
imperturbable Miss Windsor. "Red faces are not becoming to red heads,
that is, generally speaking, but your skin is such an exquisite
texture, Miss Brown, that it doesn't matter whether it's red or white.
Did you see where a girl had written to a beauty editor and asked for a
cure for blushing? The editor told her that age was the only cure.
Sometimes, however, one gets very good suggestions off those pages, good
hygienic suggestions, I mean."
And so Adele carried the conversation along at such a swift pace that
Molly did not have the chance to say what she had intended. She had
always regarded that kind of talk with supreme contempt: praise that
tapered into a sting. "It would have been more honest to have given the
sting without the praise," she thought, "and less hypocritical and
censorious."
It was Adele's trick to make you agree with her, and if you did, lead
you on to further and more dangerous ground, until you suddenly felt
yourself placed in the awkward position of saying something unkind
without having intended it.
It was strange that Judy was so blind to this trait of Adele's. But
then Adele was very attractive. There was a kind of abandon about her
that suited Judy's style. They had a great many tastes in common. Adele
was very talented and the two girls often went off on Saturday afternoon
sketching expeditions together.
"Nance, I'm ashamed of myself for thinking such things," whispered
Molly, on the way down to supper, "but there is something almost
Mephistophelean about Adele Windsor."
"She-devil, you mean," broke in Nance bluntly.
Molly laughed.
"Mephistophelean was more high sounding. Besides she's just like
Mephistopheles in 'Faust.' She doesn't speak right out, only whispers
and suggests. Innuendo is the word, isn't it? Sometimes I'm really
frightened for Judy."
"She is awfully crushed, but she'll wake up soon enough. She always
does," answered Nance carelessly.
But Molly had secret misgivings, in spite of Nance's assurances, and
furthermore, she was convinced that the crafty Adele was well aware of
these misgivings and that it gave her much private enjoyment to make
Molly uncomfortable.
"The trouble is I can't fight her with her own weapons," Molly thought.
"I'm not clever enough, and besides I wouldn't if I could. After all,
boys' methods of settling disputes by drawing a circle and fighting it
out are somehow much more honest. It would be worth a black eye and a
bloody nose to lay forever all that innuendo and sly insinuation."
"She's hypnotized Judy into putting her up for the Shakespeareans and
the Olla Podridas," said Nance. "And she'll get in. Nobody will dream of
blackballing her, you'll see."
Molly compressed her lips into a firm red line and said nothing, but she
was almost led to wish that school societies did not exist at all.