THE APPEAL TO OLIVE
And Gerry’s plan was nothing more or less than to make a direct,
personal appeal to Olive, asking her to aid in the fight for Jean by
making a sacrifice of herself. True, Gerry did not know that Olive was
as yet completely in the dark about Jean’s refusal to join the Theta
sorority because of the failure of the girls to include her in the
invitation, but even with this knowledge Gerry would hardly have been
deterred from her plan. For how could it help Olive to have Jean wreck
her own chances on her account nor how could it alter her classmates’
attitude toward her?
The Monday following her talk with Winifred, Gerry overtook Olive, as
both girls were leaving their class room, and coming up close behind her
leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Oh, Olive, I wonder if you could
have a little talk with me this afternoon on strictly private business;
I wish to talk to you quite alone.”
Although Gerry had never been so rude and cold to her as some of her
other classmates, at this attitude of unexpected intimacy, Olive
appeared surprised. She had no idea that Gerry could be wishing to speak
to her of the class election, for Jean had carefully excluded all
mention of this subject from the conversation in their own rooms and no
one else had seen fit to mention the subject to Olive.
“Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to see you at any time,” Olive
nodded, pleased that Gerry should wish to be with her alone. “Why not
come up to our sitting room right now, as our lessons are over for the
afternoon?”
But with a great appearance of secrecy Gerry shook her curly head. “No,
I am afraid Jean might be bobbing in there at any minute,” she confided,
“and I particularly don’t want her to know just at present what I wish
to say to you.”
“Suppose I ask Miss Hunt to let us take a walk together without any one
else?” Olive next proposed; “I am sure she will.”
Half an hour later the two girls, well away from Primrose Hall, were
walking through the nearby woods and yet Gerry had not mentioned the
subject of conversation they had come forth to discuss.
Curious why she should find it difficult; she was perfectly sure of
having right on her side in this suggestion she was about to make, and
yet there was a quiet, unconscious dignity in Olive’s manner that made
her companion a little fearful of approaching her with advice or
entreaty. Perhaps it might have been just as well to have laid this
matter before Jessica Hunt or, as a last resort, Miss Winthrop, before
forging ahead. But Gerry was an ardent suffragette in the making and, as
she had determined to follow in the footsteps of her brilliant father,
she knew that indecision must never be a characteristic of the new
woman. However, it was just as well to have this stranger girl recognize
her entire friendliness before she made known her mission.
Having talked of many things together, of their love of the outdoors, of
Jack’s condition, after all it was Olive who at last opened up the way
for her companion’s disclosure.
“I am sorry to have talked so much,” she said suddenly, “for I have not
yet given you a chance to say what you wished to me. What is it?”
And all at once her face flooded with color, her eyes widened and she
looked at Gerry with a half-spoken appeal. Up to this moment it had not
occurred to Olive that her classmate’s desire for a private interview
with her could have any serious import, but noticing Gerry’s hesitation
and apparent embarrassment, Olive suddenly believed that she intended
questioning her about her past. And what could she say? Ruth and Jack
had advised her not to reveal her story, and yet if her schoolmate now
asked her for the truth she would not lie. Gerry had always been kinder
than the other girls and possibly thinking the gossip about her false,
her desire now might be to disprove it.
With a kind of proud humility Olive faced the girl whom she hoped for
the minute wished to be her friend. “What is it?” she asked again.
Evasion was not Gerry Ferrows’ strong point. “Do you want Jean to be
elected Junior Class president?” she demanded abruptly.
Olive stared and then laughed happily. “Well, I should say I do,
rather,” she answered. “What a funny thing for you to ask me. And I am
awfully grateful to you for the help you are giving Jean, for she is
awfully ambitious and Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter and all of us would
be so proud of her if she should win after being so short a time at
school.”
“Well, if you are so anxious for her to win, why don’t you do something
to help her instead of standing in her way?” This question was even more
blunt than the first. And it hurt, because Olive bit her lips.
“I help her? I stand in her way?” she repeated, stopping in her walk and
turning to face the other girl squarely. “Tell me, please, how I can
help her and how I stand in the way of her election?”
At this, Gerry Ferrows felt extremely uncomfortable, still she was not
of the kind to turn back. “Well, you can help Jean a whole lot by making
her join our Theta Sorority at once and not hold back any longer because
you have not been invited to join also.”
There could be no doubt that Olive’s amazement was perfectly genuine.
“Do you mean to tell me that Jean isn’t a Theta already with the girls
tormenting her every minute for weeks to come into the society? Why, I
thought that Jean had joined long ago and simply had not mentioned the
matter to me because of not wishing to talk of a thing that might make
me uncomfortable. I can see now that the girls may not want a class
president who isn’t a member of a sorority, and also that if Jean stays
out of the societies because of me, it makes us seem more like real
sisters instead of just a girl whom Jean’s family is befriending.”
Gerry nodded, mute for once because Olive had put the case too plainly
for her either to add to it or to contradict.
“Dear Jean, it is awfully good of her and awfully foolish and just what
I should have expected,” she went on. “Please understand that I am very
sorry both for Jean’s and Frieda’s sakes that I ever came with them as a
student to Primrose Hall and I would have gone away before now only I
could not worry Jacqueline Ralston, who is so ill, or our chaperon, Ruth
Drew, who must give all her time and thought to Jack. But you see none
of us realized that the girls at Primrose Hall would care so much
because my birth and past were so different from theirs. In the West
these things do not count to so great an extent.”
To her own surprise Gerry Ferrows’ eyes, which were seldom given to this
proceeding, suddenly filled with tears. Like Ishmael of old, Olive
seemed to her to be cast out into the desert for a crime in which she
had no part.
But if this Indian girl had always been shy and sensitive in her
attitude before the hurt of her schoolmates’ coldness toward her in
times past, at this moment her manner greatly changed. Perhaps because
Olive was so quiet and gentle it had looked as though she had no pride,
but this is not true, for her pride was of a deeper kind than expresses
itself in noise and protest: it was of that unconscious kind associated
with high birth and breeding, the pride that suffers wrong and hurt with
dignity and in silence.
Now she drew herself up, facing her companion quietly, her dark eyes
quite steady, her lips fixed in a firm line and two bright spots of
color glowing in her dark cheeks. “I cannot tell you how much I thank
you for telling me this about Jean,” she said “and please believe I did
not know of it. Of course you wish me to make Jean see the foolishness
and the utter uselessness of her sacrifice of herself for me and I
surely will. I suppose you must have wondered why I did not do this
before.”
And still Gerry continued to find conversation increasingly difficult,
though fortunately Olive was saying for her the very things she had
intended to say. Shyly Gerry slipped her arm in school-girl fashion
across Olive’s shoulder, but the other girl drew herself away, not
angrily in the least, but as if she wished neither sympathy nor an
apology.
“Do let us go on back to the house at once,” she suggested, “for I must
not waste any time before I see Jean, as the election is to take place
so soon. If her connection with me should make her lose it I simply
don’t know what I should do!”
And forgetting all about the presence of Gerry, Olive started for home,
walking with that peculiar grace and swiftness which was so marked a
characteristic of her training.
Almost panting, Gerry, who was herself exceedingly athletic, tried to
keep up. “You must not be foolish, Olive,” she begged, “and you are a
brick! Whatever happens it can’t be your fault if we girls at Primrose
Hall are narrow and hateful and blind.” For somehow at this late hour in
their acquaintance Gerry Ferrows had begun to realize that whatever
unfortunate past Olive Ralston may have had, somehow she had managed to
breathe a higher atmosphere than most other girls. In their first
intimate talk together Olive had shown no anger against her classmates
for their cruelty, no envy of Jean’s popularity or desire to claim her
allegiance as a defense against their unkindness. No, she had only been
too anxious to sacrifice herself, to make the way straight for Jean. And
at this moment quite humbly Gerry would have liked to have begged Olive
to allow her to be her friend, only at this time she did not dare. And
as they walked on together in silence some lines that she had learned
that morning in their Shakespeare class in their reading of “The
Winter’s Tale,” came suddenly to her mind.
“Nothing she does or seems, but smacks of something greater
than herself,
Too noble for this place.”