HER FATHER'S METHODS.
"There is just one thing about it. We have _got_ to get busy." Leslie
Cairns made this announcement with special emphasis on the word "got."
Her face wore an expression of sullen determination. "Those Sanford
goody-goodies are out to do us."
"Out to do us?" repeated Natalie Weyman, with questioning inflection.
"What do you mean, Les? I failed to see any particular triumph on their
part this afternoon. They merely marched off with a seedy-looking
freshie or two. No one we wanted." Natalie shrugged her disdain of the
Lookouts' capture. "Too bad that simple-acting Walbert creature didn't
stay with dear Miss Bean. We could live without her. I have no use for
that girl."
Leslie's eyes narrowed. She banged her dessert spoon on the table with a
vicious clang and thrust her chin forward.
"Probably _you_ haven't, Miss Jealousy," she sneered. "I fail to see
anything simple about Miss Walbert. She has three times as much sense as
certain persons I could name."
"Meaning me, I suppose." Natalie's tone was equally sneering. She was
white with anger, principally at having been called "Miss Jealousy."
Leslie had often privately accused her of being jealous-hearted. This
was the first time she had ever taunted her so openly of it.
"Won't you two _please_ stop scrapping?" begged Margaret Wayne in a
tired voice. "I thought we came to the Colonial for a pleasant evening.
It has been anything but that, with you two snarling back and forth at
each other like a couple of tigers at the Zoo."
"Much obliged for the compliment," flung back Natalie in frost-bitten
accents.
"Oh, you are entirely welcome." Margaret laid provoking stress on the
"welcome."
"Looks as if the scrap might be trusted to you, Wayne. You certainly can
hold up your end of it." Leslie called her friends by their last names
merely to be insolent. "Anyone can fuss with Nat, you know. She has the
sweet disposition of a very sour pickle most of the time."
"Since that is your opinion of me, I am surprised you ever cared to be
friends with me at all." Very near to tears, Natalie managed to preserve
an offended dignity which had more effect upon Leslie than any
sarcastic retort might have had. Nor was Natalie unaware of this.
Momentarily angered, she had made a strenuous effort to choke back the
biting words just behind her lips. She always remembered one cold fact
in time. It never paid in the long run to quarrel with Leslie.
"Oh, you are not so bad when one has grown used to you," Leslie
patronizingly conceded. "Excuse me for losing my temper and telling you
the plain truth about yourself."
Natalie's color rose. She hated Leslie's patronizing insolence more than
she hated her open vituperation. She would have liked to say that she
was amazed to learn that Leslie ever told the plain truth about
anything. Prudence warned her to let the quarrel drop.
"I accept your apology, Leslie," she said with great sweetness, entirely
ignoring the sting of Leslie's remarks.
"What?" Leslie stared. A faint snicker arose from two or three of the
other girls. "You seem to have recovered your wits again, Nat," she said
with elaborate carelessness. "We are quits, I guess, for the present."
"Thank goodness!" This from Joan Myers. "Now that peace has been
restored, perhaps you will condescend to tell us what you started out
to say, Leslie."
"De-lighted." Leslie bowed ironically. "To jump into the middle of the
subject at once, I asked you seven Sans to this party tonight for a
purpose. We eight girls are the founders of the Sans. I told all the
other Sans that I wasn't going to ask them here tonight, and not to get
their backs humped about it. I promised 'em a big party at the Ivy
Saturday night. There is a private dining room there with a long table
that will seat the whole eighteen of us. I don't know whether they liked
it or not, and I don't care. It was up to us to talk things over and let
them into it afterward."
"Some of the girls had other engagements anyway," put in Joan Myers. "I
know Anne Dawson and Loretta Kelly were invited to a senior blow-out at
Alston Terrace."
"Well, that's neither here nor there," retorted Leslie somewhat rudely.
It did not please her to learn that any of the Sans had received more
attention from the seniors than herself. Thus far she had not been the
recipient of an invitation to dine from a senior. She was still inwardly
sore at the lack of attention they had met with on their arrival at
Hamilton station.
"I don't think it is a very good policy for we eight founders of the
Sans to keep to ourselves too much," deprecated Dulcie Vale, regardless
of Leslie's views on the subject. "The whole eighteen of us will have to
stick together and work hard if we expect to keep the upper hand of
things here at Hamilton."
"Oh, forget it," ordered Leslie brusquely. "Your trouble is easy to
explain. You are sore because I didn't invite Eleanor, your pal, to this
dinner."
"I am not," stoutly contradicted Dulcie. Nevertheless her sudden flush
belied her words.
"Of course you are," went on Leslie imperturbably. "Understand, I didn't
_want_ the rest of the gang here tonight, and that's that. What I
started out to say when Nat and Joan and Margaret and you butted in, one
by one, was this: We must bestir ourselves and make a fuss over the
freshies. This year's freshman class is, I'm told, the largest entering
class for ten years. I don't feel like bothering myself with the diggy,
priggy element of freshies, but even they will have to be considered.
I'd do anything to spite that Sanford crowd and upset the progress they
have made against us."
"What progress have they made, I'd like to know?" demanded Harriet
Stephens scornfully. "If you mean the way they got back at us for
ragging Miss Dean, I think that was _simply disgraceful_ in them to call
a meeting as they did and blacken our standing at Wayland Hall. It is a
wonder we managed to keep our rooms at the Hall after all the row they
made about a little bit of ragging."
"We kept them, just the same, and you may thank Joan and I for it,"
significantly reminded Leslie. "I know old Remson is so sore at us she
could snap our heads off. The funny part of it is, she will never know
how cleverly we blocked her little game. That reminds me. I don't want
the rest of the Sans to know the way we worked that scheme. Eight of us
in the secret is enough. Remember, if it ever got out we would be all
through at Hamilton College."
"Do you believe we would be expelled, Les?" asked Dulcie Vale, looking
worried.
"I don't believe it. I _know_ we would. Nothing could save us. Never
mind being scared, though. No one will ever know the rights of our plot
unless some one of you girls here is silly enough to tell it. That's why
I am cautioning you to be careful."
"Leslie is precisely right about that," Natalie Weyman hastened to
agree. "We shall have to be very careful what we do this year. I think
that a little missionary work among the freshies would be a good thing
for all of us. Later on we can drop them if they grow to be too much of
a bore."
"They will take care of themselves as they get used to college,"
predicted Leslie. "If some of 'em turn out to be really smart, like Lola
Elster, for instance, then we needn't be slow about running with them.
_You_ think, Nat, that I have a crush on that Miss Walbert." Leslie
turned directly to Natalie. "I have not. She is just the person I need,
though, to carry out a plan of mine. Joan and Harriet both say that the
Walberts have millions. They have a wonderful place at Newport. So Mrs.
Barry Symonds told Joan. What did you say the Walbert's place was
called, Joan?"
"Evermonde," furnished Joan promptly. "I was sorry I didn't go and call
on the kid, particularly after I found out who she was. I only met her
twice at the tag end of the season."
"What I want her for," continued Leslie with slow emphasis, "is the
freshman presidency."
"Some modest little ambition," murmured Evangeline Heppler.
"Um-m! Well, rather!" agreed Adelaide Forman. "How do you propose to
make it happen, Les?"
"Leave that to me. I'm not prepared to tell you yet. I only know that it
has to happen. It will give us a good hold on the freshies." Leslie's
loose-lipped mouth tightened perceptibly. "We'll have to do some clever
electioneering. I expect it will cost money. I don't care how much it
costs, so long as I win my point."
"You mean we must rush the freshies?" interrogated Margaret Wayne.
"Yes," nodded Leslie. "Cart them around in our cars. Blow them off to
dinners and luncheons. Begin tomorrow to go down to the station and grab
them as they come off the train."
"Deliver me from the station act." Joan Myers made a wry face.
"You'll have to go to it with the rest of us," insisted Leslie with a
suggestive lowering of brows. "This is really serious business, Joan. I
don't intend to sit still and see a bunch of muffs like those Sanford
girls run Hamilton College. We had things all our own way until they
came upon the scene. Nothing has been as it should be for us since then.
They have turned a lot of upper class girls against us. I don't mean
Leila Harper and her crowd. They never had any time for us. There are a
good many Silverton Hall girls of our social standing, but they went
almost solid against us in that Miss Reid affair last year. Who was to
blame for that? Those Sanford busybodies, you may be sure."
"I believe it was that Miss Page who started the Silverton Hall gang,"
differed Dulcie Vale, with a touch of sulkiness. She was still peeved at
Leslie and now delighted in expressing a contrary opinion.
"I don't care what _you_ believe," mimicked Leslie disagreeably. "I say
it was the Sanford crowd who started the trouble."
"Say it, then. Sing it if you like," retorted Dulcie. "I am privileged
to my own opinion."
"Keep it to yourself, then. I don't care to hear it," coolly returned
Leslie. "You girls make me weary. You are all so ready to start fussing
over nothing."
"You are just as ready!" burst forth Dulcie, in a sudden gust of anger.
"You think we all ought to do precisely as you say and never have an
opinion of our own. I fail to see why I, at least, should be bossed by
you. It isn't we girls that are at fault. It is you. I like you, Leslie,
when you don't try to run everything. When you begin bullying, I can't
endure you. Please don't attempt to bully me, for I won't stand it."
"There is one thing about it," broke in Harriet Stephens decidedly, "we
shall not accomplish much if there is no unity among us. So far as I am
concerned, I would rather have Leslie take the lead. I will never
forgive the Sanford crowd for what they did to us last March. If Leslie
can find ways to get even with them, I am willing to do as she says,
simply to see those hateful girls defeated in whatever they set out to
do."
"That is the proper spirit," approved Leslie. "Believe me, I know what I
am saying when I tell you that we must fight those girls and put them
in the background where they belong. The way to begin this year is to
win over the freshies. The minute it is known we are interesting
ourselves in these greenies' welfare, our popularity will take a jump
upward. Every one of you can either give me your promise tonight to help
or keep away from me the rest of the year. Think it over. Don't promise
and then go to grumbling behind my back about it. If you do, I'll be
sure to hear it."
"It will be rather good fun to play angel to the freshies for a change,"
said Evangeline Hepper. "We might have a picnic some Saturday, or give a
hop for them. Have it understood, of course, that it was the Sans
Soucians who were to be the hostesses."
"We can decide better what to do after we have met a few of the
freshmen," returned Leslie. "I hope there won't be many of those
beggarly-looking girls who come into college on scholarships or scrape
their way through without a cent above their expenses. They are so
tiresome. That Miss Langly, of our class, is a glowing example of what I
mean."
"She is very high and mighty since the Sanford crowd took her up, isn't
she?" shrugged Natalie.
"She always was, for that matter," said Adelaide Forman. "Those girls
have praised her and babied her until she is a good deal more
infatuated with herself than she used to be."
"That is another reason I have for wanting to get back at them,"
asserted Leslie. "You all know the snippy way she acted when we asked
her to change rooms with Lola. Worse still, she had to go and tell her
troubles to the Sanford crowd. They started right in to tell everyone
how brilliant she was and how shabbily we had treated her. Then the
Silverton Hall girls took it up and spread the news abroad that Langly
had won a scholarship no one else had been able to win for twenty years.
That sent her stock away up and we had to stop ragging her or be
disliked. I shall not forget that little performance in a hurry."
"They certainly put one over on us with that miserable old beauty
contest, too." Natalie's voice quivered with bitterness.
"Leila Harper was to blame for that, Nat. She is the cleverest girl at
Hamilton. We made a serious mistake in the beginning about her. They say
her father has oodles of money." Joan looked brief regret at the mistake
the Sans had made in not cultivating Leila.
"We never could have got along with her," Leslie said decidedly. "I am
glad we never took her up. I detest her and Vera Mason, too, but not
half so hard as I do Miss Bean and her satellites." Leslie invariably
said "Bean" instead of Dean in derision of Marjorie.
She now paused, her heavy features dark with resentment. The
independence of Marjorie Dean and her friends was a thorn to her flesh.
Each time she had attempted to injure them she had been ingloriously
defeated. She was determined, this year, not only to win back and
maintain her former leadership at Hamilton College, but also to crush
the rising power of the girls she so greatly disliked.
"Are you going to let the rest of the Sans in on this station business?"
inquired Harriet Stephens.
"Naturally; we need them to help us out. Don't get the idea I am trying
to keep the other girls out of our plans. I am not. It's like this. The
eight of us ran around together at prep school before we took the rest
of the girls into our crowd. We have always been a little more
confidential among ourselves because we are the old guard, as you might
say. Of course they know all about our troubles with Miss Bean and her
pals. They went through them with us. What we must keep to ourselves is
this Wayland Hall affair. We saved their rooms for them. They know that.
They don't need to know the exact process by which we did it, do they? I
merely told them that I thought I could get my father to fix up matters
if there was any trouble started. They let us do all the worrying over
it. I guess we have the right to keep it to ourselves. That settles
you, Dulcie. You can quit sulking because I won't allow you to tell
everything you know to Eleanor. Remember it is to your own precious
interest not to."
Leslie delivered herself of this long speech very much as her father
might have addressed himself to a group of his business lieutenants. It
was received with a certain amount of respect which was always accorded
her by her chums when she adopted her father's tone and manner. They
were all still more or less uneasy over the method which she and Joan
had employed to save them their residence at Wayland Hall.
"Leslie, do you think we will ever have any trouble about--well--about
what you and Joan did?" questioned Evangeline Heppler rather uneasily.
"Not unless you let someone outside this crowd into the secret. The only
other person who knows it would not dare tell it. She would deny knowing
a thing about it to the very end. Don't worry. That is past. It won't
come up again. We are safe enough. It is up to us now to put the enemy
on the back seats where they belong and regain the ground we lost last
year. I repeat what I said awhile ago. We have _got_ to get busy."