UNFLATTERING COMPARISON
While Marjorie Dean and Muriel Harding had been earnestly discussing a
welfare invitation for difficult Doris Monroe, the latter had been
spending a couple of very disagreeable hours with Leslie Cairns. Leslie
had seen fit to assume the particularly dictatorial air which of all her
category of unpleasant moods Doris most thoroughly detested.
To begin with Leslie had come to meet Doris at the Colonial fresh from a
hot argument with the Italian, Sabatini, whom she had seen fit to call
on at his garage and scathingly upbraid for being a “cheating dago
quitter.” Leslie argued that, for the amount of money she had paid
Sabatini he should have stood out against the threats of Signor Baretti
and declined to put the busses back into service.
“You are no lady, but the creza girl; thick head you have,” Sabatini had
finally shouted at Leslie when his temper broke all bounds. “You are the
foolish. I don’ run the busses when Baretti say I must, I get my
franchisa take from me. Then don’ run, anyhow. You get that through your
head, you can.”
“Then give back part of that money, and cut out the pet names,” Leslie
had blazed back at him. “You’ll find out who you’re talking to, you
thieving dago, before you are many weeks older. I’ll _break you_. Put
you out of business. _Just like that!_” Leslie had given her usual
imitation of what she fondly believed would have been her father’s way
of dealing with the situation.
As a matter of fact her father, Peter Cairns, would never have figured
personally in any such affair. He would have placed it in the hands of a
subordinate below his rank as financier, who would have in turn detailed
his subordinate to act and so on down until one competent to deal with
the Italian had been secured.
Leslie was not ignorant of her father’s methods of procedure but she was
ambitious to prove her own power over people and circumstances. She was
determined to prove to her father that she could bring about any
consummation she desired either by her own clever maneuvering or by
force of will. Her idea of will power was—“make other people do as you
say.”
Sabatini’s parting, furious speech had been: “You try make troubla I
make you the troubla, too. You see. I tell about you to the paper man.
Everabuddy read ’bout you in the paper.” He had already refused to
return a penny of the money she had given him. Leslie’s humor as she
lounged out of the garage with an air of lofty indifference was
ferocious.
This had been her third and most trying interview with the Italian,
Sabatini, since the busses had again begun to run. She reflected
morosely as she drove her car along Hamilton Pike to keep her engagement
with Doris that not a single thing she had planned since first she had
come to Hamilton College as a student had ever turned out advantageously
to her. She did not in the least blame herself or her methods. She was
conceitedly sure of herself. Someone or something had always “butted in”
at the wrong time. Or else the persons on whom she depended to do their
parts in her various schemes had failed her.
She wondered if her father had received the letter she had written him.
She was confident that it would be forwarded to him if he were not in
New York. She was particularly anxious to know where he was. She hoped
he was not in New York. For weeks, a scheme, the most ambitious plan to
make trouble which Leslie had yet concocted, had been foremost in her
thoughts. It had kept her busy ever since Thanksgiving, daily visiting
her garage property and prowling in the immediate neighborhood of the
dormitory building. The gray stone walls of the dormitory were well
started and steadily reaching upward, a fact which seemed to furnish
Leslie with deep though frowning interest.
Coming within sight of the dormitory that afternoon she had glanced
toward it and given a short angry laugh. She had then stopped her car
for a moment to compare the activities on the dormitory lot with those
going on at her garage site. The operation of tearing down the old
houses in the block she had purchased, and afterward clearing the
ground, had gone very slowly. The contractor who had charge of that part
of the work had dragged it, so as to benefit himself. Under honest
management the operation should have been far enough advanced at least
to show the garage cellar dug. As it was the ground she owned was yet
partially littered with the debris of demolishment.
When she had finally arrived at the Colonial there to find Doris waiting
for her at one of the tables she had reached a point where nothing could
please her. On the way from the dormitory site to the Colonial she had
decided to go to New York alone over the holidays. She had important
work to do. She did not propose to allow entertaining Doris to interfere
with it.
Her first words to Doris on seating herself at the table had been: “The
trip to New York is off, Goldie. I can’t take you with me, I mean. I
have to go, but entirely on business, I must go alone.”
Her disappointment very keen on hearing such depressing news, Doris had
received Leslie’s announcement with bad grace. More, she had accused
Leslie of not being a person of her word. The two girls had argued and
squabbled as was their wont. Doris was particularly incensed over the
fact that she had refused two invitations from adoring freshmen to go
home with them for the holidays. Three different sophs had also extended
her invitations. She had refused them all because she most fancied the
New York trip. Now Leslie had changed her mind and she, Doris Monroe,
would be the only loser.
Leslie had relied on her most sarcastic, overbearing manner to cope with
Doris’s indignant explosion. As before, when they had stood out against
each other, Leslie found her match. Doris proved herself so utterly,
scornfully thorny that Leslie finally backed water and volunteered the
sulky promise that if she possibly could she would take Doris to New
York as she had first agreed. Doris herself had not asked it. Neither
had she appeared to take note of the promise. When she left Leslie at
the door of the Colonial, refusing to enter her car, she had merely said
“good-bye” in the iciest of tones. This did not worry Leslie. It was not
the first time Doris had walked away miffed.
Doris, however, was not only angry at Leslie for her wilful
unreliability, she was experiencing a healthy contempt for Leslie
herself. She contrasted Leslie’s standards and ideals with those of the
girls on the campus whom she was beginning to know, understand and like.
She liked the jolly, worshipping freshmen who had made so much of her.
They were an honorable set. She liked Louise Walker, Calista Wilmot and
Charlotte Robbins particularly among the sophs. She admired Gussie
Forbes, though she never went near her. She knew Gussie to be devoted to
Marjorie Dean. She had quite a secret crush on Robin Page, though she
would have died rather than admit it. She liked Phyllis Moore and
Barbara Severn. She also liked Muriel and admired her for her sturdy
principles. She kept these likes to herself, however, pretending to be
more indifferent than she was.
She could not be among such girls long without discerning the difference
between their ethical standards and those of Leslie Cairns. She detested
Leslie’s unscrupulousness, yet there were times when she admired the
ex-student’s sang froid. She saw the really humorous, clever side of
Leslie and felt vaguely sorry for her because she was so
unprepossessing. She realized Leslie’s power through money, but she had
lost her respect for the lawless girl on that head.
She had hurried into the early winter twilight from the tea room feeling
as though she never wished to see Leslie Cairns again. All the way from
the campus gates to Wayland Hall she continued to think darkly of what
she had lost by Leslie’s selfish tactics. She had announced so
confidently, in refusing other Christmas invitations, that she expected
to spend the holidays in New York. Now she would not humble her pride by
letting it be known that she had been disappointed.
In consequence Muriel’s invitation, delivered immediately after she
reached her room, came as a consoling surprise. Instantly followed
remembrance that Muriel was one of the Sanford five whom Leslie
detested. She recalled her own antagonism toward Marjorie Dean. To
accept a Christmas invitation to Muriel’s home meant the acceptance of
Muriel’s chums as friendly acquaintances. It flashed upon Doris in that
moment of self-examination that there was no reason why she should not
accept as her friends the four Sanford girls who were Muriel Harding’s
intimates.
Following that illuminating flash came a thought far from noble. It took
strong hold of Doris. How piqued Leslie Cairns would be were she to
accept Muriel’s invitation. It would serve Leslie right. It would show
her that she, Doris Monroe, had the courage of independence. She had no
faith in Leslie’s final grudging assurance that the trip to New York
should be made as they had planned it. Leslie had changed her mind once,
she was likely to disappoint her again.
Thought of Leslie and a resentful desire to exasperate her completely
outweighed consideration of the purely social side of Muriel’s
invitation. Doris’s momentary hesitation after Muriel had invited her
did not arise, as Muriel had surmised, from regretful embarrassment at
her lack of cordiality toward Muriel’s chums. Doris’s mind was fully
occupied with one idea—the beneficial effect her trip to Sanford would
have upon Leslie. She would write Leslie a note informing her of the
astonishing change in her Christmas plans. If Leslie chose to rage over
the matter, she must rage it out alone. Doris resolved that she would
not see Leslie again until after she had returned to the campus from the
trip to Sanford.
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