THE SUBSTITUTE.
Miss Walker had not failed to see the stinging article against women's
colleges written by Miss Beatrice Slammer for a newspaper, and when she
recalled that Miss Slammer had recently spent a day at Wellington as a
guest of the college under plea of gathering material, she felt somewhat
embittered. When, therefore, it came to her ears that the students
intended to ask Miss Slammer to Wellington ostensibly for the purpose of
hearing her views on anti-suffrage, she smiled and said nothing to
anybody except Miss Pomeroy, who had raised some objections.
"Don't worry over it, my dear," said Miss Walker, "they won't do
anything to make us ashamed. It's Miss Slammer who will be ashamed, I
rather imagine."
Perhaps Miss Slammer was surprised at receiving an invitation from
Wellington University after her lampoon of college girls. Whatever
qualms she may have felt in writing it had been hushed to sleep with the
insidious thought that the views, if not true, were at least sensational
enough to catch the public eye; and this was more important to Miss
Slammer than anything else. It flattered her to be asked to speak at
this small but distinguished college. Of course they had never seen the
article or they would never have sent the invitation. Miss Slammer had
her doubts as to whether any person outside New York ever read a
newspaper, especially a lot of college girls who had no interests beyond
amateur plays and basket ball. So she promptly dispatched a polite note
of acceptance to "Miss Julia Kean." Then at the last moment, only a few
hours before train time, her courage failed her.
"I can't do it," she said. "I simply haven't the nerve."
"Do what?" asked Jimmy Lufton, glancing up from his typewriter to the
somewhat battered and worn countenance of Miss Slammer.
"Face a lot of women and talk to them about anti-suffrage."
Jimmy grinned. He had the face of a mischievous schoolboy. In his eyes
there lurked two little imps of adventure while his broad and sunny
smile was completely disarming. "Sunny Jim" was the name given him by
his friends in the office, a name that still clung to him after five
tempestuous years of newspaper work.
"Would you like a substitute?" he asked. "I think I could give some
pretty convincing arguments."
"What do you know about it?" demanded Miss Slammer doubtfully.
"Did you read the article that came out last Sunday--'Anti's to the
front, by a Wife and Mother.' That was me. I thought I gave a pretty
fair line of argument."
"Jimmie, you are the limit," exclaimed Miss Slammer. Then she paused and
began to think quickly. Suppose Jimmy did go up to Wellington with a
letter of introduction from her, and take her place? Well, why not? She
was too ill to come, and had sent the well-known young writer on this
vital subject. She would be keeping her engagement in a way, and Jimmy
would be getting a holiday and perhaps material for another story at the
same time. The editor's consent was gained. "See if you can't get
something about basket ball," he had ordered, and Jimmy dashed out of
the office, the railroad ticket contributed by Wellington in one pocket
and Miss Slammer's note in the other.
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.
"A man!" she thought. "Now, isn't that too much? Everything is ruined.
We can't teach Miss Slammer a lesson in politeness through a proxy."
"I hope it's all right," Jimmy began, watching Judy's face with
undisguised admiration.
"Oh, yes," she answered hastily. "We are very glad to see you, Mr.
Slammer----"
Jimmy broke into his inimitable laugh.
"My name is Lufton," he said, and the mistake seemed so funny that Judy
laughed, too, and everybody felt more at ease immediately.
"We were to have had you up to breakfast--I mean Miss Slammer," Judy
stammered.
"I'll get something--er somewhere," said Jimmy in a reassuring tone.
"There's an inn in Wellington village," suggested one of the girls.
"Miss Slammer was scheduled to speak at three o'clock this afternoon,"
began Judy.
"And am I banished to the village all that time?" Jimmy broke in. "You
don't bar men from the grounds, do you? I'd like to look around the
place a little."
"No, indeed. This isn't a convent. If you will come up to the Quadrangle
after breakfast, we'll be delighted to show you the buildings and the
cloisters--whatever would interest you."
"Thanks, awfully," said Jimmy, and presently they watched him stroll off
up the road to the village, whistling as gaily as a schoolboy.
There were scores of faces at the windows of the Quadrangle when the
special 'bus drew up at the archway.
"She didn't come," Judy called to a group of girls lingering in the
tower room. "A man came."
"Young or old?" cried half a dozen voices.
"Young and passing fair," said Jessie.
"Passing dark, you mean. He had black hair."
"But where is old Miss Slammer?" demanded Edith Williams.
"Old Miss Slammer was afraid to face the music, I suppose. Anyway, she
sent Mr. James Lufton down to take her place and he is at present
breakfasting in the village."
"Somehow, all the sweetness has gone out of revenge!" exclaimed Edith.
"I foresee that nobody will be willing to practice the 'freeze-out' on
an innocent man, passing fair, if he is a substitute."
"Well, he's coming up this morning to be shown around college. If any
one wants to take the job of showing him, I'm willing to resign my
place. Anybody who is willing to do the 'freeze-out' act, I mean. I
don't think it will be easy. He has a way of laughing that makes other
people laugh. You couldn't be mean to him if you tried."
Already, Judy had unconsciously set herself the task of protecting Mr.
James Lufton from the fate planned for Miss Slammer.
"Aren't we to listen in cold silence when he makes his speech?" asked a
girl.
"Of course," put in Margaret, "you couldn't listen in any other way to a
speech against suffrage. I shan't applaud him, I know. If he represents
Miss Slammer, like as not he shares her views about college girls, too,
and is just as deserving as she is to a polite 'freeze-out.'"
"It was a mad scheme from the first," put in Katherine Williams. "I
never did approve of it. I don't imagine such a subtle revenge would
have had the slightest effect on Miss Slammer."
"We intend to have our revenge," cried a dozen voices, followers of
Margaret.
In the midst of the hot argument that followed this statement, Judy
hurried off to Beta Phi House to eat her share of the fine breakfast
some of the girls there had undertaken to give to the enemy of women's
colleges. She felt that things looked pretty black for Mr. James Lufton.
Running upstairs to Adele Windsor's rooms, she knocked on the door
impatiently. It was quite two minutes before it was cautiously opened
by Adele, whose face looked flushed and there were two white dents at
the corners of her mouth.
"I heard she didn't come," Adele began, without waiting for Judy to
speak. "Let's go down to breakfast. We're late as it is." She closed the
door with a slam and pushed Judy in front of her toward the stairs.
"By the way, did a visitor find you?" asked Judy. "She inquired where
you lived at the station."
"Oh, yes. Just a woman--on business. About some clothes," she added
carelessly. "Dressmakers are dreadful nuisances sometimes."
Judy said nothing, but it occurred to her that Adele must be a very good
customer for a dressmaker to come all the way to Wellington to consult
her.
While the Beta Phi girls and their guests were breakfasting in the
paneled dining-room, the little woman in shabby black came softly out of
Adele's rooms and tiptoed downstairs. Under cover of the noise of
laughter and talk she opened the front door and went out. Jimmy Lufton
saw her later at the inn in the village where she had coffee and toast
and inquired the hour for the next train to New York. Jimmy himself was
occupied in jotting down notes on an old envelope.
"If it makes me laugh, I should think it would make them," he chuckled
to himself.