REJECTED CAVALIERS
One glaring result of Jane's dinner party was the ignoring of the
ten-thirty rule that night.
It was eight o'clock when the congenial diners finished an elaborate
dessert and strolled gaily out of the Inn. The beauty of the night
induced the will to loiter. Some one proposed a walk into Chesterford
and a visit to a moving-picture theatre.
When they emerged from it it was half-past nine, thus necessitating a
quick hike to the campus. Jane and Judith made port in their room at
exactly twenty-five minutes past ten.
Visions of unprepared lessons looming up large, they decided that for
once "lights out" should not be the order of things.
As a consequence of retiring at eleven-thirty, both overslept the next
morning and dashed wildly off to chapel without breakfast.
Occupied from then on with classes, it was not until she had finished
her last recitation of the morning and was on her way to Madison Hall
that Jane remembered her resolve to see Alicia.
Determined to lose no more time in putting it into execution, she
quickened her pace. Coming to the stone walk leading up to the steps of
the Hall, Jane uttered a little cluck of satisfaction. She had spied
Alicia seated in a rocker on the veranda, engaged in reading a letter.
"Oh, Alicia!" she called as she reached the foot of the steps. "You're
the very person I most want to see!"
Sound of Jane's voice caused Alicia to glance up in startled fashion.
She had been faintly smiling over her letter when first Jane glimpsed
her. Now her pale face underwent a swift, ominous change. She hastily
rose.
"I didn't wish to see _you_," she said stiffly, and marched into the
house.
Jane's primary impulse was to follow her and demand an explanation. The
rebuff, however, had stirred again into life the old, rebellious pride
which had formerly caused her so much unhappiness.
For a moment she stood still, hands clenched, cheeks flaming with
mortification. Then with a bitter smile she walked slowly up the steps
and into the house. After that affront Alicia would wait a long time
before she, Jane Allen, would seek an explanation.
"Well, it has come," she said sullenly, as she entered her room where
Judith sat at the dressing table, recoiling her long brown hair.
"What's come? By 'it' do you mean yourself?"
Judith turned in her chair with a boyish grin.
"No," Jane answered shortly. "Alicia Reynolds has gone back to her old
chums."
"You don't mean it!"
Judith's hands dropped from her hair. In her surprise she let go of half
a dozen hair pins she had been holding in one hand.
"Now see what you made me do," she laughingly accused. "Get down and
help me pick them up."
"Oh, bother your old hairpins!" exclaimed Jane savagely. "I'm awfully
upset about this, Judy. I felt last night as if I should have gone to
Alicia and asked her what was the matter. This is some of Marian
Seaton's work."
"Of course it is," calmly concurred Judith. "I haven't the least idea
of what it's all about, but I agree with you just the same. I'll agree
even harder when I do find out."
In a few jerky sentences Jane enlightened Judith.
"So that's the way the land lies," commented Judith. "Well, I'm not
surprised. Take my word for it the ignoble Noble has had a hand in this.
Just the same I don't believe Alicia has gone back to Marion Seaton.
She's merely hurt over some yarn that's been told her. You'd better see
her, Jane, and have it out with her."
"I won't do it." Jane shook an obstinate head. "Alicia ought to know
better than listen to those girls. She knows how badly Marian Seaton
behaved last year about basket-ball. She knows that Marian is untruthful
and dishonorable. If she chooses to believe in a person of that stamp
then she will have to abide by her choice."
It was the stubborn, embittered Jane Allen of earlier days at Wellington
who now spoke.
"Only the other day I said to Dorothy that I didn't hate Marian Seaton
any longer; that I felt only sorry for her. I said, too, that there must
be some good in her if one could only find it. What a simpleton I was!"
The sarcastic smile that hovered about Jane's red lips, fully indicated
her contempt of her own mistaken sentiments.
"Adrienne was right," she said after a brief pause. "She said she could
never forget nor forgive an injury. I thought I could, but I can't. I
mean I don't want to."
Her brows meeting in the old disfiguring scowl, Jane began pacing the
room in what Judith had termed her "caged lion" fashion.
"Oh, forget it," counseled Judith, casting a worried glance at Jane's
gloomy, storm-ridden face. "Don't let Marian Seaton's hatefulness upset
you, Jane. You behaved like a brick about your room and that letter.
This isn't half as bad as that mix-up was. You said your own self that
you were going to ignore anything she tried to do against you. Now go
ahead and keep your word. You've lots of good friends. You should
worry."
"I haven't so many," Jane sharply contradicted. "I can count them on my
fingers. I don't make friends as easily as you do, Judy."
"Just the same a lot of fuss was made over you last spring when you won
the big game for our team," Judith sturdily reminded.
"That's not friendship. That was only admiration of the moment. The same
girls who cheered me then would probably be just as ready to turn
against me if they happened to feel like it," pointed out Jane
skeptically. "No wonder I used to hate girls. Very few of them know what
loyalty and friendship mean."
"You're hopeless." Judith made a gesture of resignation.
With a chuckle she added: "Why not challenge Marian Seaton to a duel and
demolish her? Umbrellas would be splendid weapons. I have one with a
lovely crooked handle. You could practice hooking it around my neck and
when the fateful hour came you could bring the double-dyed villain to
her knees with one swoop. Wouldn't that be nice?"
"You're a ridiculous girl, Judy Stearns."
Jane was forced to laugh a little at Judith's nonsense.
"_You're_ a goose yourself to get all worked up over nothing," grinned
Judith. "I can't say I blame you for throwing up the stupendous labor of
hunting out Marian's good qualities. In my opinion 'There ain't no such
animal.' But you're a very large-sized goose if you allow her to spoil
your sophomore year for you."
"I don't intend she shall spoil it," Jane grimly assured. "I've stood a
good deal from her without ever even once trying to strike back. I'm
not sure that I've done right in allowing her to torment me as she has
without ever asserting myself. There's a limit to forbearance. I may
feel some day that I've reached it."
Judith smiled but said nothing. She had too high an opinion of Jane to
believe that her proud-spirited roommate would ever descend to the level
of her enemies. Given an opportunity for revenge, she believed that Jane
would scorn to seize it.
"Have you invited your freshman yet?" she asked with sudden irrelevancy.
"No, I haven't had time to see any one of them yet," Jane answered.
"I asked Miss Lorimer, a cute little girl from Creston Hall, this
morning after chapel, but she said she'd already been invited," informed
Judith. "I must find out if the three eligible freshmen here have
escorts yet. I suppose they have, with so many sophs in the house. The
ignoble Noble's not an eligible."
The luncheon bell now interrupted the talk. It seemed to Jane as she
took her place at table that spiteful triumph lurked in the sharp glance
Elsie Noble flashed at her.
The conversation carried on by herself, Adrienne and Dorothy, centered
almost entirely on the coming dance. From Adrienne, Jane learned that
the Hall's three freshmen had already received invitations.
When the little French girl announced this, Jane again fancied that she
read satisfaction in the sharp features of the quarrelsome freshman.
Though the latter had not addressed a word to her tablemates since her
advent among them, she never missed a word they said. All three were
well aware of this and it annoyed them not a little.
When just before dinner that evening Judith and Jane compared notes, it
was to discover the same thing. Neither had been successful in securing
a freshman to escort to the dance.
"I've asked five girls and every one of them turned me down," Judith
ruefully acknowledged. "I thought I'd start early, but it seems others
started earlier."
"I've asked two different girls, but both have escorts," frowned Jane.
"I sha'n't ask any more. I thought Miss Harper, the second girl I asked,
refused me rather coolly. I want to do my duty as a soph, but I won't
stand being snubbed."
"Let's go and see what luck Ethel and Adrienne have had," proposed
Judith.
Indifferently assenting, Jane accompanied Judith to her friends' room.
"Ah, do not ask me!" was Adrienne's disgusted outburst, "These freshmen
are, of a truth, too popular. Four this day I have invited, but to no
purpose."
"I'm going to take Miss Simmons, a Barclay Hall girl, to the dance,"
informed Ethel. "I asked her this morning and she accepted."
"Well, we seem out of luck," sighed Judith. "Do you know whether Mary
and Norma have invited their freshmen?"
"Mary's going to take Miss Thomas, an Argyle Hall girl. Norma hasn't
asked any one yet," was Ethel's prompt reply. "You girls just happened
to ask the wrong ones, I guess. Try again to-morrow. There are more than
enough freshies to go round this year."
After a little further talk, Jane and Judith went back to their room.
"What do you think about it?" Judith asked abruptly the instant they
were behind their own door.
"I don't know. It's probably as Ethel says, 'a happen-so.' I can't think
of any other reason, unless----"
Jane stopped and eyed Judith steadily.
"Unless some one in the freshman class has set the freshmen against us,"
quickly supplemented Judith.
"Yes, that's what I was thinking. It doesn't seem possible in so large a
class. Still one girl can sometimes do a good deal of mischief."
"You mean Miss Noble?"
Judith was too much in earnest to use the derisive name she had given
the disagreeable freshman.
"Yes," affirmed Jane. "If she helped to turn Alicia against me, she is
quite capable of going further. So far as we know, you and Adrienne and
I are the only sophs who've been turned down all around. Norma hasn't
asked any one yet. Anyway, she's a junior."
"It looks rather queer, so queer that I'm going to make it my business
to ask a few questions to-morrow. If there's really anything spiteful
back of this, believe me, little Judy will find it out."