"Your room? Since when?" Jerry had forgotten all about the icy stare
with which she intended to freeze this very person. She was gazing at
the intruder with belligerence, not hauteur. Her tone conveyed an
ominous chill to the too-sure claimant.
"I don't understand you," she returned with a slight toss of her head.
"I only know that I was assigned to this room by Miss Remson."
"Did she come to the door of this room with you?" inquired Jerry
bluntly.
"Certainly not. She assigned me to Room 16. You two have evidently made
a mistake. I know I haven't." Another toss of the head, more
disagreeably pronounced. "I didn't need her or a maid to show me. I know
this house."
"The number of this room is 15. Miss Macy and I have had it for three
years," Marjorie broke in evenly. "You will find 16 across the hall. The
numbers on this side of the hall are odd; on the other, even."
"Oh!" The arrogant claimant turned poppy-red. Plainly in the wrong,
Marjorie's civil, utterly dispassionate information fell upon her ears
as a merited rebuke. "I was told--" she began feebly. "I am sure the
number over this door _looks_ like 16. This is the room I _wanted_. I
beg your pardon. Still I don't understand----"
In spite of the grudging apology she appeared only half convinced.
Marjorie merely inclined her head without speaking. Jerry was silent
from sheer disgust. The battery of two pairs of eyes full upon her
proved too much for the intruder. She made a rather hurried exit,
closing the door behind her with enough force to indicate a rise of
temper.
"Blunderhead!" pronounced Jerry contemptuously. "I understand now why
she can't be taught to drive her car with safety to the public. She is
really stupid underneath her trickiness."
"Too bad she didn't look before she leaped." A quiet little smile
dimpled the corners of Marjorie's red lips. She had been merely amused
at the incident.
"She must have felt foolish," Jerry declared. "That's what we might call
'Skirmish, Number One.' I daresay we'll have more of them with her
Walbertship before we receive our diplomas and hike for Sanford."
"Not if I can help it," vowed Marjorie, still smiling. This time it was
at Jerry's funny way of phrasing her opinions.
"Oh, I forgot. I was going to tell Lucy about going to Silverton Hall.
I'll put the rest of these things away when I come back. As long as I am
to tell her, I might as well see Leila and Muriel. You go ahead and
finish unpacking your suitcase."
Jerry left the room on her errand. She presently returned with all three
girls. The start for Silverton Hall was promptly made, the five friends
strolling bareheaded across the campus.
Marjorie thought she had never seen her "second friend," as she liked to
term the campus, looking more verdantly beautiful. A fairly rainy summer
had left the short, thick grass peculiarly vivid in its greenness. The
leaves of every decorative shrub and tree seemed greener than of yore.
It was as though the life of the free emerald spread was rising, not
waning, with the approach of autumn.
Arrived at Silverton Hall, disappointment awaited them. Not one of their
particular friends had returned. Half a dozen seniors grouped in
girlishly picturesque attitudes on the veranda welcomed the callers with
warmth. Leila, in particular, was hailed with delight. Her great
popularity with the Silvertonites made her return as a post graduate a
matter of rejoicing.
Place was made for the visitors on the veranda and the steady hum of
voices soon proclaimed an enthusiastic exchange of campus news. It was
earlier than the Wayland Hall girls had thought. They therefore declined
a pressing invitation to stay to dinner at Silverton Hall, and, after
half an hour's stay, got under way again.
"Where to?" asked Jerry, as they left the premises of Silverton Hall.
"Fortune isn't with us tonight. We are wandering about almost as
aimlessly as on the evening we landed here as freshies. Leila, excepted,
of course. She was a soph then."
"And very well I remember that evening," rejoined Leila. "When I saw you
Sanfordites come into Baretti's I looked at Marjorie and planned the
Beauty contest."
"Yes; and inveigled me into joining the line that night when I had
intended to keep out of it," reproached Marjorie. "I was really cross
with you for about two minutes, Leila Greatheart."
"'Tis a long day away since then," Leila lightly assured.
"I asked where we were going, but no one saw fit to answer me,"
complained Jerry. "I'm not hungry enough yet for Baretti's."
"Let's stop and find out," proposed Muriel. "Only lunatics keep on going
without knowing for what point they're bound."
"We might go over to Acasia House and see if Barbara Severn has come
back," proposed Marjorie.
"I'd propose going over to Wenderblatts' to see Kathie and Lillian, but
I haven't called Kathie on the 'phone yet. One doesn't like to descend
on a private family unannounced," Lucy the proper said regretfully.
"Oh, make it Acasia House," Jerry voiced, with a touch of impatience.
"If Barbara hasn't come back we may see someone else we know. Either we
are especially early at Hamilton this year, or else everybody else is
late. No one's home! Boo, hoo!" Jerry burst into a dismal wail.
"I refuse to go another step until you stop that awful noise," balked
Muriel. "We all feel _very_ sad, Jeremiah, over the absence of our
various friends, but we try to control our sorrow. Try and do likewise."
"It is ice cream we will be after buying you at the nice Italian man's,
if you will stop roaring," wheedled Leila, adopting a decided brogue.
"I believe the rules of Hamilton forbid unseemly noise on the campus."
Lucy fixed a severe eye on Jerry.
Jesting in this fashion the quintette had again taken up their walk,
this time headed for Acasia House.
"We started out too early to make our calls," commented Marjorie. "The
Acasia House girls will probably be at dinner. It is only half-past six
now."
"We'll only stop a few minutes there. By the time we have walked that
far we may be hungry enough for a bang-up dinner at Baretti's," Jerry
expressed this hope. "Nothing like hiking around the campus by way of
celebrating our return to the knowledge shop."
Acasia House, however, did not yield the winsome presence of Barbara
Severn. "Not back yet," was their second disappointment that evening. As
Marjorie had surmised, such of the students who had returned were at
dinner. The callers mounted the front steps to a deserted veranda. More,
it was a maid, who, in answer to Marjorie's ringing of the doorbell,
furnished the information regarding the still absent Barbara.
"Balked all around!" Jerry dramatically struck her hand to her forehead
as the party descended the steps. They had decided not to try getting
acquainted with the freshmen of Acasia House that evening. They
preferred waiting for Barbara's return.
"Grant Giuseppe hasn't shut up shop and gone on a vacation," grumbled
Leila. "'Tis my Irish bones that ache from so much weary wandering.
"Oh, it's up the hill I had gone me fast,
Till my feet were stoned and sore;
And down the dale I hurried last
To find but the bolted door."
She had broken into one of the curious wailing Celtic chants which were
the girls' delight.
"Do sing the rest of it, Leila," begged Muriel, as the Irish girl
stopped laughingly after the fourth line.
"Not now, I should only wail you to tears," she declared.
"Truly, Leila, I don't know a Hamilton girl I would have missed so much
as you," Marjorie said convincingly, passing her arm across Leila's
shoulders. "I am _so_ glad you came back!"
"I'm thinking I had fine sense," solemnly agreed Leila. "And I shall be
treating you all at Giuseppe's this evening to celebrate my own
smartness."
Thus adroitly she had taken the dinner upon herself. It was usually a
matter for animated discussion as to which one of them should stand
treat. A chorus of dissent arose as it was, but her further wily and
broad Irish reminder, "Will yez be quiet? Think af me dignity as a P.
G!" won her the privilege.
Signor Baretti's welcome of his favorite patrons was given with true
Latin sincerity. He had not forgotten the serenading party of the
previous year and asked anxiously for Phyllis and her orchestra.
"They come back this year, those who play and sing for me so nice?" he
queried. "Many are the graduates each June. Then I don't see more.
Always I know those--what you call the fraish--fraish--mens. Only these are
not the mens at all, but the girls. Why you call these--mens?"
The Italian's evident puzzlement over this point evoked amused laughter
in which he good-naturedly joined. He showed childish gratification,
however, at Marjorie's simple explanation of the term.
"Never before have I understand," he confessed. "Now I must ask
something more. You know those girls I have not like who come here?
Every one know, I don't like." He made a sweeping gesture. "They don't
come here for, oh, long time before college close. Somebody say they are
made to go away because they don't do well. You tell me. That is the
truth?"
For a moment no one spoke. The blunt innocence of the inquiry was not to
be doubted, however. The odd little proprietor's question must be
answered.
"They were expelled from college, Signor Baretti," Marjorie made grave
reply. "You heard the truth."
"That mean, they can't come back more?" persisted the Italian.
"Yes." Again it was Marjorie who answered him.
"Ah-h-h!" The ejaculation contained a note of triumph. "So I think. But
one, the one these girls I _most_ don't like she walk in this place one
day las' week. This day she is friendly; never before. She say she come
back early. I know better." He placed his finger to his eye, a
significant Latin gesture, meaning that he was not to be deceived. "She
think I don't know. This one is Miss Car-rins."