The Italian's announcement was received by his hearers with varying
degrees of surprise. His sole object in inquiring as he had regarding
the Sans appeared to be a desire to prove his own surmises as correct.
Satisfied on this point, he hospitably insisted on taking their dinner
order himself, and trotted kitchenward to look after it.
"Humph!" Jerry gave vent to her favorite ejaculation the instant the
proprietor of the restaurant had left them. "Now what do you suppose she
is doing in this part of the world?"
"Ask me something easier." Leila's dark brows lifted themselves. "She
may be visiting someone in the town of Hamilton."
"I should think she would hate to come back here after what happened,"
commented Muriel. "The idea of her telling Signor Baretti she had come
back early to college. I suppose she thought he wouldn't know that she
had been expelled."
"'Be sure your sin will find you out,'" quoted Lucy with a touch of
satiric humor. "It's a moral warning to behave, isn't it? News of
disgrace travels fast and wide."
"Yes, Luciferous, it does. I trust that you will ever walk in the path
of rectitude. Let this deplorable instance be a lesson to you."
Muriel had promptly taken advantage of Lucy's remarks. Her mischievous
features set in austerity she managed to keep them thus for at least two
seconds. Then she burst into a ripple of laughter.
"Don't lose any sleep over me," was Lucy's independent retort. "Just
apply some of that wonderful advice to yourself."
"I will, if I ever get to where I feel I need it," beamingly assured
Muriel.
Thus the subject of Leslie Cairns' re-appearance at Baretti's was passed
over without further comment. Nor was it renewed again that evening.
Before they left Baretti's they were treated to a real surprise. Engaged
in eating the delectable dinner they had ordered, none of the five saw
two laughing faces peering in at them from the main entrance of the inn.
Two pairs of slippered feet stole noiselessly along the broad aisle
between the tables.
Looking up from her Waldorf salad, Jerry gave a sudden cry that was in
the nature of a subdued war whoop of pure joy.
"Can you beat it!" she shrieked jubilantly, standing up and waving her
salad fork. "The wanderers have returned!"
Her shout of welcome was quickly taken up by the others. Leila sprang
from her chair and made one dive toward a diminutive young woman in a
pongee traveling coat and white sports hat. The Lookouts were equally
eager to claim their own. She happened to be Veronica Lynne.
For an instant the hitherto quiet room was filled with the rising treble
of girl voices. They had been entirely alone in the restaurant since
their entrance save for Signor Baretti and the waitresses.
"Our Midget--and see the cunningness of her in her long coat! Does she
not look many inches taller?" teased Leila, holding Vera at arms' length
and then re-embracing her.
"I'm not even half an inch taller, you old Irish flatterer," Vera
declared as Leila released her to greet Ronny. "Oh, girls, it is fine to
see you all again." Vera clasped her little hands in her own inimitable
fashion.
"It's wonderful to have both of you popping in on us at once." Marjorie
was holding Ronny's hands in her own. "How did you both happen to arrive
here together? It must have been sheer luck."
"What do you think? We bumped into each other in Chicago," Vera informed
them. "It was at the Union Station. I had been feeling awfully bored by
my own society. Father had gone to call on an old friend between trains.
I didn't care to go with him. I sat in the women's inner waiting room
trying to read a magazine when who should walk straight past me but
Ronny. I couldn't believe my eyes for a second. Then I made just about
such a dive for her as Leila just made for me."
"I came as far as Chicago in Father's aeroplane," announced Ronny
proudly. "It is the longest trip he ever made. He didn't wish to go
farther east than Chicago, so he secured a stateroom for me on the Great
Eastern Express. Talk about luck in meeting Vera! I should say it was
luck. We sat up nearly all night to talk. We both began to feel sleepy
away this side of Hamilton. It will be an early bedtime for us both
tonight, won't it, Midget?"
"Um-ah!" Vera put a small hand to her mouth to conceal a rising yawn.
"We stopped at the Hall, but you were gone. We knew where to find you."
"Are you hungry?" demanded Muriel. "We've gone as far as the salad.
What'll you have?"
"Nothing but some ice cream and a demitasse for me," declared Ronny. "We
had dinner on the train."
Vera decided on coffee and a pineapple ice. The two were soon
established at table with their chums, listening to the meager amount of
college news which they had to give out.
"It must be unusually quiet at Hamilton," Vera presently remarked.
"Nearly a third of the students were back at this time last year."
"It's a deserted spot, Midget," Leila assured. "We've been to Silverton
Hall and Acasia House this evening and none of our special pals from
either house are back yet."
"Oh, well, I'm back, and so is Ronny. We certainly count as a couple of
someones," Vera laughed. "Old Hamilton will blossom out over night. No
one here, then, all of a sudden, everybody back and things humming."
The first rush of greeting having subsided, Ronny's companions bombarded
her with eager questions concerning her trip to Chicago by aeroplane.
Absorbed in what she was relating, none of them had paid much attention
to the few girls who had dropped into the restaurant.
Sounds of singing followed by a burst of rather loud laughter and
high-pitched conversation drew their gaze simultaneously toward the
door. A crowd of perhaps a dozen girls now entered the large room, still
talking and laughing boisterously.
The central figure among them was a girl well above the medium height
and rather heavily built. Hatless, her short brown hair curled about her
face in a manner suggesting its natural non-curliness. Her face was full
and her color high. Her bright brown eyes, though large, contained a
boldness of expression that rather marred their fine shape and size. Her
nose was retroussé and her mouth too wide for beauty. The ensemble of
features was dashing; not beautiful. She wore a one-piece frock of pale
pink wash satin, a marvel as to cut and design. Her whole appearance
indicated the presence of wealth. She looked not unlike a spoiled,
overgrown baby.
"Freshies, and they act it," muttered Jerry.
The party arranged themselves at two tables, keeping up a running fire
of loud-toned repartee. Signor Baretti, now seated at one end of the
restaurant, perusing an Italian newspaper, peered sharply over it at the
disturbers. The little man knew, to a dot, the difference between
natural high spirits and boisterousness.
Hardly had they seated themselves when the tall girl stood up and called
out, "Attention, everybody!" She waved an inclusive arm over the two
tables occupied by the flock she appeared to be leading.
"Sit down Gussie!" giggled a small girl with very light hair, a snub
nose and freckles. "You are making a lot of noise in the world. Didn't
you know it?"
"Who cares." The tall girl tossed her short-cropped head. "Already now
with the Bertram yell. Let's show folks where we came from. When I raise
my arm--go ahead and _whoop_!"
Highly pleased with herself and utterly regardless of proprietor and
diners, she raised a rounded arm, bare almost to the shoulder, with a
grandiose air.
Immediately lusty voices took up a yell ending in a long drawn
"Ber-t-r-a-m! That's us!" This was repeated three times. As it died away
the enterprising leader resumed her chair, apparently careless of what
impression she and her companions had made.
Two meek Italian waitresses now approaching to take their order, they
hesitated and hung back a little. The yelling having subsided, they rose
afresh to duty and went over to the party. There they continued to
stand, unheeded by the revelers. The exuberant freshmen now had their
heads together over the menu, babbling joyously.
"Are we ready to go?" Leila glanced inquiringly around the circle. "Let
us leave these little folks to their merry shouts and laughter. Two of
those youngsters, the tall one and the little tow-head, are at Wayland
Hall. I mentioned them a while back as noisy. Have you reason to doubt
me?"
"We could never doubt you, Leila Greatheart," lightly avowed Marjorie.
She was eyeing the rollicking freshmen with some amusement.
"I guess Bertram must be a prep school. Hence the loyal howls for their
little old kindergarten," surmised Jerry.
"They have a whole lot to learn," smiled Vera. "A few well-directed
remarks from the faculty will soon calm their joyous ardor. Perhaps we
shouldn't criticize. We were rather noisy ourselves not many minutes
ago."
"Yes; but in moderation," reminded Jerry. "All our rejoicing together
wasn't as loud as one whoop from the freshies. Not that I care," she
added genially. "I can stand it if Giuseppe can."
"Bertram?" Lucy questioningly repeated. "Where is it?"
"Not far from New York City," Vera answered. "I knew two girls who
entered Vassar from there. One of them told me it was more like an
exclusive boarding school than the regulation prep. She called it the
Baby Shop. She said the girls there behaved like overgrown youngsters.
That was four years ago. Maybe the Bertramites have grown up since
then," she added in her kindly way.
"Again, maybe they have not." Leila glanced skeptically at the
Bertramites. They were now engaged in all trying to order at once, a
proceeding quite bewildering to their servitors.
"I hate to get me gone from here,
Oh, my stars, I'm glad I'm going!"
hummed Leila under her breath. "Now that is as fine an old Irish song as
you'd care to hear. Do I shout it at the top of my breath and disturb
the peace? I do not. I keep my lilting strictly within bounds." For all
her criticism, Leila was half amused at the noisy freshmen.
"Subdued like, as it were," supplemented Muriel with a killing smile.
"You have a fine understanding." Leila beamed with equal exaggeration.
In this jesting mood they rose from the table. Leila had already pounced
upon the dinner check. On the way to the cashier's desk, they became
aware of less noise at the freshmen's tables. The concentrated interest
of the newcomers had become centered on the departing upperclassmen.
The gaze of the tall, dashing girl, who had led the others in the
Bertram yell was now traveling with peculiar eagerness from face to
face. Her expression was a mixture of curiosity, defiance, admiration
and envy. Her glance rested longest on Ronny. She devoured every detail
of Ronny's smart tweed traveling suit, gray walking hat and gray
buckskin ties. A gleam of respect showed itself in her bold brown eyes.
The freshman Leila had described as a "tow-head," after an equally
deliberate inspection of the departing group, caught the tall girl by
the arm and began a rapid flow of talk. Not for an instant as she talked
did she remove her gaze from Marjorie and her chums.
Jerry was the first to note they were being thus observed by the other
crowd of students. A decided scowl appeared between her brows. She
always resented being stared at.
"Those freshies have mistaken us for a part of the exhibits in the
Hamilton Museum, I guess, let loose for an hour or two of recreation,"
she grumbled. "I object to being rubbered at. What?" She mimicked Leslie
Cairns' affected drawl.
Her manner of expression, rather than her remarks, induced the laughter
of her companions. Nor did she realize that she had turned her eyes upon
the freshmen as she spoke, with a look of bored endurance far from
flattering to them. Unfortunately the tall girl happened to catch it, as
well as the ripple of laughter. Her face darkened. Her retroussé nose
elevated itself even higher.
"Isn't that girl with the big brown eyes simply gorgeous?" exclaimed a
pert-looking freshman with shrewd black eyes. The girls they had been
watching were now out of sight.
"A regular dream of beauty," praised another. "Her complexion was like a
magnolia petal."
"My, but you two are crushed on that--well, quite pretty girl," the tall
leader said in a slightly miffed tone. "My eyes are larger than hers,"
she added.
"Oh, no, Gus, they certainly aren't a bit larger," flatly contradicted a
stolid-looking girl with eyeglasses.
"They certainly _are_," maintained the tall girl.
"Don't grab all the bouquets, Gus," lazily advised Calista Wilmot, the
black-eyed girl. "Leave a few for someone else."
"Sha'n't. I want 'em all myself." The reply was careless rather than
ill-humored. "Anyhow there was nothing startlingly beautiful about that
one girl you folks are raving over."
"Oh, I think there was," differed the freshman with the eyeglasses, with
a positiveness that courted argument.
"Do you suppose they were freshmen?" A plump blonde girl with a pleasing
face tactfully propounded this question. Anna Perry, the stolid
freshman, and Augusta Forbes never agreed on anything. Charlotte Robbins
purposed to nip rising argument in the bud if she could.
"No, indeed," Augusta assured. "The tall one with the black hair is a
post graduate. I inquired about her. She rooms three doors up the hall
from Flossie and me. I haven't seen the others before. I don't care to
again." A glint of wounded pride appeared in her eyes as she made this
announcement.
"Why, Gus?" demanded three or four voices.
"Because they are snippy. Didn't you see the disgusted way that one girl
in light blue looked at us? Much as to say, 'Oh, those silly freshmen!'
They are all upper class girls. I don't admire their manners. They were
making fun of us, I'm sure. They have no time for mere freshmen."
"Gus talks as if it were a positive crime to be a freshman in the eyes
of the upper class students." Calista Wilmot lifted her thin shoulders.
"I've always heard they go by preference rather than class in taking up
a freshman."
"They do _not_." Augusta seemed determined to oppose her companions.
"The juniors and seniors at college are _awfully_ high and mighty. I
have been told that they are _very_ patronizing to the freshmen. They
shall not patronize _me_. I won't submit to it. This business of the
freshmen having to defer to upper class students is all nonsense. I
shall assert myself from the start."