OPENLY AND ABOVEBOARD
When Jane awoke the next morning her first thought crystalized into a
determination to interview Alicia Reynolds before the day was over.
Speculating as to her best opportunity, she decided that it should be at
the end of the morning recitations.
For once she would cut her recitation in Horace, which came the last
hour in the morning. Alicia had no recitation at that hour. She would
probably be in her room and alone. Jane also knew that Elsie Noble was
occupied with a class at that time.
If looks could have killed, Jane and Adrienne would undoubtedly have
been carried lifeless from the dining room that morning. At breakfast
Elsie Noble's thin face wore an expression of spiteful resentment, which
she made no effort to conceal. She was inwardly furious over her
failure to rally the four Bridge Street freshmen to her standard. In
consequence, she was more bitter against Jane and Adrienne than ever.
It further increased her rancor to hear Adrienne prattling with
child-like innocence to Dorothy Martin of the coming dance.
Knowing very well what she was about, the little girl kept up a
tantalizing chatter that was maddening in the extreme to the defeated
plotter.
Unacquainted with the true state of affairs, Dorothy's genuinely
expressed interest in the Bridge Street girls merely added fuel to the
fire.
"Ah, but they are indeed delightful!" Adrienne wickedly assured, her
black eyes dancing with mischief. "We shall be proud of our freshmen,
when we escort them to the dance. Shall we not, Jeanne?"
"Yes, indeed. You must meet them, Dorothy. You'll like them all
immensely. They're a splendid, high-principled lot of girls."
Signally amused by Adrienne's tactics, Jane could not resist this one
little fling at her discomfited tablemate. She hoped it would serve to
enlighten the latter in regard to at least one thing.
Her second recitation, spherical trigonometry, over, Jane hurried across
the campus toward the Hall, keeping a sharp lookout for Alicia. It was
just possible she might meet the latter on the campus.
Reaching the veranda, Jane lingered there. If she could waylay Alicia as
she came in, so much the better. With this idea paramount, she sat down
in a high-backed porch rocker and waited.
She could not help reflecting a trifle sadly that thus far her sophomore
year had run anything but smoothly. She had looked forward to peace,
whereas she was in the midst of strife. And all because Marian Seaton
did not like her. That dislike dated back to her initial journey across
the continent to Wellington. If she had not antagonized Marian then, she
wondered if she and Marian would have become enemies. She decided that
they must have. They had nothing whatever in common.
Light, hurrying feet on the walk brought Jane's retrospective musings to
an end. She saw Alicia a second before the latter saw her. Promptly
rising, she headed Alicia off neatly as she gained the steps.
"I want to speak to you, Alicia," she greeted evenly. "You must listen
to me."
"I have nothing to say to you. Please let me alone."
A dull flush mantled Alicia's pale cheeks as she thus spoke. Her tones
indicated injury rather than anger.
"But I have something to say to you," persisted Jane. "I must know
positively why you have turned against me. It's not fair in you to keep
me in the dark. Do you think it is? What have I done to deserve such
treatment?"
Stopping on the step below Jane, Alicia stared hard at the quiet,
purposeful face looking down on her.
"I believed in you, Jane," she said sadly, with a little catch of
breath. "You made me admire you. Then you spoiled it all. It hurt me so.
I--I--don't want to talk about it."
She took an undecided step to the right, as though to pass Jane and flee
into the house.
"Don't go, Alicia. Let's get together and straighten things out." Jane
laid a gentle hand on the other girl's arm. "I'm sure we can. You
promised last year to be my friend. Have you forgotten that?"
"How can I be the friend of a girl who talks about me?" Alicia cried out
bitterly. "A girl who only pretends friendship?"
"So, that's it. I thought as much. Now tell me what I said about you."
Something in Jane's steady glance caused Alicia's eyes to waver.
"You told Ethel Lacey that you wished you didn't have to invite me to go
with you girls to the Inn the other night, but you felt that you could
hardly get out of it. That I expected you to do it. You know that's not
true. I'd never intrude where I wasn't wanted."
"Did Ethel tell you this?" Jane asked composedly.
"No. Someone else overheard you say it," retorted Alicia.
"And that 'someone else'?"
"I won't tell you. I promised I wouldn't."
"You don't need to tell me, because I _know_." Jane emphasized the
_know_. "It's not true. I didn't say that. This is what I said."
As well as she could recall it, she repeated the conversation that had
taken place between herself and Ethel.
"I asked Ethel to invite you because I didn't want you to go to your
room," she explained. "Miss Noble and I are not on speaking terms. Did
you know that?"
"Yes, I knew it," Alicia admitted. "I was told it was your fault. I
didn't believe it until----"
She paused, uncertainty written large on every feature. She had begun to
glimpse the unworthiness of her doubts.
"Until Miss Noble came to you with this untruthful tale about me,"
finished Jane.
Alicia was silent. She could not truthfully contradict this pertinent
statement.
"Which of us do you believe, Alicia?"
Jane put the question with business-like directness.
Alicia mutely studied Jane's resolute face. Honesty of purpose looked
out from the long-lashed, gray eyes. She mentally contrasted it with
another face; dark, spiteful and furtive.
"I believe you. Forgive me, Jane."
Her lips quivering, Alicia stretched forth a penitent hand.
"There's nothing to forgive."
Jane was quick to grasp the hand Alicia proffered.
"I ought to have come straight to you," quavered the penitent.
"I wish you had. Thank goodness, it's all right now. Let's sit down in
the porch swing, Alicia. There are several things yet to be said and
this is the time to say them."
Her hand still in Alicia's, Jane gently pulled her toward the swing.
When they had seated themselves, she continued:
"I don't like to say things behind anyone's back, but in this case it's
necessary. Miss Noble has started her freshman year as a trouble maker.
She is very bitter against me for several reasons. When I came back to
college, I found that Mrs. Weatherbee had given her my room. She
understood that I was not coming to Madison Hall this year. I'm telling
you this because I suspect that it is news to you."
"It certainly _is_." Alicia showed evident surprise. "I supposed Elsie
Noble had been assigned to room with me from the start. She never said a
word about it to me."
"She didn't want you to know it. I don't wish to explain why. I'll
simply say that Mrs. Weatherbee decided I had first right to the room.
It made Miss Noble very angry. She came back to the room after she had
left it. Adrienne, Judith and I were there. She made quite a scene. I
hoped it would end there, but it hasn't. Since then she has tried to set
not only you against me, but others also. She has circulated a paper
among the freshmen against Judith, Adrienne and I which some of them
have signed."
"How perfectly terrible!" was Alicia's shocked exclamation. "She
certainly has kept very quiet about it to me. I never suspected such a
thing."
"I can't see that it has done us much harm," Jane dryly responded. "It's
come to a point, however, where we feel that we ought to assert
ourselves. We are here for study, not to quarrel, but we won't stand
everything tamely."
"I don't blame you. I wouldn't, either. I'm sure Marian Seaton is behind
all this," declared Alicia hotly. "Ever since I came back to the Hall
she's been trying to talk to me. Small good it will do her. When I broke
friendship with her last year it was for good and all."
"When you wouldn't speak to me the other day, I thought you had gone
back to her," confessed Jane. "Just a little before that Dorothy and I
had been saying that we thought we ought to try to make Marian see
things differently. Afterward I was so angry I gave up the thought as
hopeless. It may not be right to say to you, 'Let Marian alone,' when
one looks at it from one angle. The Bible says, 'Love your enemies.' On
the other hand, it seems wiser to steer clear of malicious persons.
Marian _is_ malicious. She's proved that over and over again. No one but
herself can make her different."
"I _know_ it's best for me to keep away from her," asserted Alicia. "My
influence wouldn't be one, two, three with her. Whenever I tried last
year to be honest with myself she just sneered at me. It's either be
like her or let her alone, in my case. There's no happy medium. So I
choose to let her alone."
"We all have to decide such things for ourselves," Jane said
reflectively. "It seems too bad that Marian's so determined to be always
on the wrong side. I've decided to let her stay there for the present.
If this affair of the paper involved only myself, I'd probably do
nothing about it. But it's not right to let Judith and Adrienne suffer
for something that's really meant for me."
"What are you going to do?" inquired Alicia.
"That's what I've been leading up to. With your permission I intend to
have a reckoning with Miss Noble in your room. I'd like you to be there
when it happens. Judith and Adrienne will be with me. Are you willing
that it should be so?"
"Yes, indeed," promptly answered Alicia. "When is the grand reckoning to
be?"
"This afternoon just before dinner. I can say my say in short order. Of
course if she's not in, I'll have to postpone it until later."
"I can let you know as soon as she comes in from her last class,"
volunteered Alicia.
"No, I'd rather not have it that way." Jane smiled whimsically. "It's
had enough to have to go to work and deliberately plan this hateful
business. It has to be gone through with. That's certain. We'll just
take our chance of finding her in. When you hear us knock, I wish you'd
open the door. It's all horrid, isn't it? I feel like a conspirator."
Jane made a gesture indicative of utter distaste for the purposed
program.
"It's honest, anyhow. It's not backbiting and underhandedness," Alicia
stoutly pointed out.
"No, it isn't," Jane soberly agreed. "That's the only thing that
reconciles me to do it. It's dealing openly and aboveboard with
treachery and spite."