"I--are you alone, Miss Dean? I would like to talk with you, but not
unless you are alone." Dulcie spoke just above a whisper, peering past
Marjorie into the room so far as she could see from where she was
standing.
"Yes, I am alone. Miss Macy will not be back for an hour, perhaps. Will
you come in, Miss Vale?" Marjorie endeavored to make the invitation
courteous. She could not feign cordiality.
"I am glad you are alone." This idea seemed uppermost in Dulcie's mind.
"I know you don't like me, Miss Dean. You haven't any reason to after
the way you were treated by the Sans last Saint Valentine's night. Of
course, I know you know who we were that night." She paused, as though
considering what to say next.
"I saw no faces, but I knew Miss Cairns' and Miss Weyman's voices,"
Marjorie said with a suspicion of stiffness. She was not pleased to hear
Dulcie preface her remarks with implied aspersions against the Sans. She
knew that the latter had quarreled with her. She guessed that pique
might have actuated the call.
"You never told anyone a single thing about it, did you?" The question
was close to wistful. It seemed remarkable to Dulcie that Marjorie could
have kept the matter secret.
"No." Marjorie shook her head slightly.
"Did your friends ever say a word about it? Those were your friends who
burst in on us and made such a noise, weren't they? Who was the one who
looked so horrible and blew out the candles?" Dulcie seemed suddenly to
give over to curiosity.
"I can't answer your questions, Miss Vale." Marjorie could not repress
the tiny smile that would not stay in seclusion. "I wish you would sit
down and tell me frankly why you came to see me. You have not been in my
room since the night of my arrival at Wayland Hall as a freshman."
"I know." Dulcie's gaze shifted uneasily from Marjorie's face. "I
thought I would come again," she excused, "but----"
The steadiness of Marjorie's eyes forbade further untruth. She became
suddenly silent. Very humbly she accepted the chair her puzzled hostess
shoved forward. Marjorie sat down in one at the other side of the center
table.
"I suppose you've heard all about my trouble with the Sans," the visitor
commenced afresh and awkwardly. "I don't belong to the Sans Soucians
now. I wouldn't stay in a club with such dishonorable girls. I simply
made Leslie Cairns accept my resignation. She was wild about it."
Now safely launched upon her story, Dulcie began to gather up her
self-confidence. "You see, my father, who is president of the L. T. and
M. Railroad, has done a great deal for the Sans. You know we have always
come to Hamilton in the fall in his private car. I have lent the Sans
money and done them endless favors, yet they couldn't be even moderately
square with me." She fixed her eyes on Marjorie after this outburst as
though waiting for sympathy.
"I have heard nothing in regard to your having left the Sans Soucians. I
have noticed that you were no longer at the table where you formerly sat
at meals." Marjorie could not honestly concede less than this.
"Didn't you hear us fussing one night in Leslie's room? It was before
Christmas. That was the night I called them all down. I was so angry! I
went into a perfect frenzy! I'm so temperamental! When I am _really_ in
a rage it simply shakes me from head to foot." There was a faint impetus
toward complacency in the statement.
"Yes; I heard a commotion going on up there one evening, but only
faintly. My door was closed. I didn't pay any attention to the noise,
for it did not concern me." Marjorie was struggling against an
irresistible desire to laugh. To her mind Dulcie was the last person she
would have classed as temperamental.
"The rest of that crowd were just as noisy as I, but Leslie Cairns
blamed me for it all. She told Miss Remson it was I alone who made the
disturbance. I'll never forgive her; _never_. What I thought was this,
Miss Dean. The Sans deserve to be punished for hazing you. I was a
victim, too, that night. They made me go along with them, and I didn't
wish to go. I came home with my eye blackened. I won't say how it
happened, only that Leslie Cairns was to blame. I know about the whole
plan for the hazing. Leslie rented that house for six months and paid
the rent in advance so as to have a good place to take you. She would
have left you there all night but Nell Ray and I said we would not stand
for that. We were the only ones who stood up for you. Leslie Cairns was
the Red Mask.
"You know that Doctor Matthews is awfully down on hazing," Dulcie
continued, taking a fresh supply of breath. "I thought if you would go
with me to his office we could put the case before him. So long as I
have all the facts of that affair and you and I were the ones hazed, he
would certainly expel those Sans from Hamilton. You could say, just to
clear me, that you knew I was hazed, too. That is, I was forced to go
with them against my will. You see I had said I wouldn't have a thing to
do with it. I put on a domino that night over my costume and started
across the campus by myself. Half a dozen of the Sans headed me off and
simply dragged me along with them. I couldn't get away from them,
either. If that wasn't hazing, then what was it?"
Marjorie was sorely tempted to reply, "Nothing but a yarn." She did not
credit Dulcie's story and was growing momentarily more disgusted with
the author of it.
"I can get away with it nicely if you will help me." Dulcie evidently
took Marjorie's silence as favorable to her plan. "I've resigned from
the Sans of my own accord. That will be in my favor. Matthews doesn't
like Leslie. You know she received a summons after Miss Langly was hurt.
Maybe the doctor didn't call her down! With you on my side. Oh, _fine_!
I can see the Sans packing to leave Hamilton in a hurry!" Dulcie
brightened visibly at the dire picture her mind had painted of her
enemies' disaster. "I can tell you a lot more things against them, too.
Leslie is afraid all the time that Miss Remson will find out how she
worked that stunt to keep us our rooms here. She----"
Marjorie interrupted with a quick, stern: "Stop, Miss Vale! I don't wish
to hear such things. I listened to what you said about the hazing as
that concerned myself only. I have no desire to know the Sans' private
affairs. Whatever they may have done that is against the rules and
traditions of Hamilton they will have to answer for. In the long run
they will not be happy. I would not inform against them to President
Matthews or anyone else."
"Would you let them go on and be graduated after what they have done
against both of us?" demanded Dulcie, her voice rising.
"It has not hurt me; being hazed, I mean," was the calm reply. "I do not
approve of hazing. I would not take part in any such disgraceful thing.
Still, I do not believe in tale-bearing. You will gain more, Miss Vale,
by going on as though all that has annoyed and hurt you had never been.
Whoever has wronged you will be punished, eventually. The higher law,
the law of compensation, provides for that."
"I don't know a thing about law. I wouldn't care to take the matter into
court." Marjorie's little preachment had gone entirely over the stupid
senior's head. Leslie had often remarked, and with truth, that Dulc was
"thick."
"I mean by the higher law, 'As ye mete it out to others, so shall it be
measured back to you again,'" Marjorie quoted with reverence.
"Oh, I see. You mean what the Bible says. Uh-huh! That's true, I guess."
Dulcie looked vague. "I'm sorry you won't help me, Miss Dean. I feel
that Doctor Matthews ought to _know_ what's going on, when it is as
serious as hazing."
Marjorie felt her patience winging away. She wished Jerry would suddenly
return and thus end the interview. It was evident Dulcie intended to
report the hazing, despite her refusal to become a party to the report.
That meant she would be dragged into the affair.
"I wish you would not go to Doctor Matthews about the hazing, Miss
Vale," she said abruptly. "If I, who was put to more inconvenience than
you by it, have never reported it, I see no reason why you should. If
you should succeed in having your former chums expelled you would feel
miserably afterward for having betrayed them, no matter how much they
might have deserved it."
"I surely should not." Dulcie's short upper lip lifted in scorn. "I
would love to see them disgraced. They tried to down me. I have a
splendid case against them because you are so well-liked on the campus.
The use of your name will be of great help. Sorry you won't stand by me.
You'll have to admit the truth if you are sent for at the office," she
ended as a triumphant afterthought.
Marjorie contemplated her visitor in some wonder. The small, mean soul
of the vengeful girl stood forth in the smile that accompanied her
threatening utterance. It seemed strange to the upright lieutenant that
a young woman with every material advantage in life could be so devoid
of principle.
"Do not count on me." Marjorie's reply rang out with deliberate
contempt. "If I were to be summoned to Doctor Matthews' office
concerning the hazing, I would answer no questions and give no
information."
This time it was Dulcie who lost patience. She rose with an angry
flounce. Sulkiness at being thus thwarted replaced her earlier attempt
at amenability.
"I might have known better than ask you," she sputtered, giving free
rein to her displeasure. "I shall do just as I please about going to
Matthews. I hope he sends for you. He will make you admit you were hazed
by the Sans. Goodnight." She switched to the door. Her hand on the knob,
she called over one shoulder: "I don't blame Les for having named you
'Bean.' You are just about as stupid as one."