A RETURN TO A FORBIDDEN LAND
“Leslie, is it really you? I’d been wondering why you hadn’t answered my
letter. I wrote you soon after I received your note.” Doris Monroe’s
indifferent drawl was not in evidence as she answered the telephone. She
was surprised and more pleased than she had thought she could possibly
be to hear Leslie Cairns’ voice on the wire. Leslie’s arrival in
Hamilton meant an immediate brightening of the bored existence Doris had
been leading since her return from New York.
“I wrote you I’d surely be here in April,” Leslie brusquely reminded,
“and here I am.”
“I’m _awfully_ glad of it.” Doris spoke with pleasing sincerity. “Is
Mrs. Gaylord with you?”
“Ye-es.” Leslie drawled the affirmation with exaggerated weariness. “How
she does wish she wasn’t. She nearly had a conniption when I told her we
were going to make a flying trip to Hamilton. I’ll meet you at the
Colonial at four this P. M. You’ll hear more of my history then. Bye.”
Leslie was gone.
Doris’s beautiful face was a study as she turned from the telephone. She
was a trifle amazed at her distinct pleasure in Leslie’s unexpected
arrival at Hamilton. Leslie had been so moodily unbearable after their
return from the holiday vacation which they had spent in New York, Doris
had felt relieved at the former’s sudden disappearance from Hamilton and
the subsequent receipt of Leslie’s brief note from New York.
It was only recently that she had begun to miss Leslie and wish for her
society. In spite of her ugly moods Leslie was possessed of an
originality which Doris found singularly enlivening. No one could say
more oddly funny things than Leslie when she chose to be humorous.
Leslie never hesitated to pay extravagantly for whatever she happened to
want. Doris admired in her what she considered Leslie’s “adventurous
spirit.” She had been brought up to know her father’s explorer friends.
They were hardy, intrepid world wanderers of daring. She had listened to
their tales of reckless adventuring into the unknown and gloried in the
doings of these splendid captains of adventure. There were occasions
when it appeared to her that Leslie showed something of the same
adventurous, undaunted spirit.
As a matter of truth, Leslie was animated by this very spirit. She had
directed it, however, into ignoble channels. What she chose to regard as
strategy and daring were nothing other than trickery and lawlessness.
Doris knew little or nothing of Leslie’s flagrant offenses as a student
at Hamilton College. She had learned of the latter’s expellment from
college from Leslie herself. She had consequently never heard the rights
of the affair. She had heard vague stories concerning it from Julia
Peyton, Clara Carter and one or two juniors. The knowledge of Leslie’s
immense wealth had hampered even their gossip about the ex-student. The
freshmen and the sophomores, who were Doris’s chief companions, had
entered Hamilton too late to be on the campus at the period before
Leslie’s and her chums’ expulsion from college. They, therefore, knew
not much about her.
The present junior and senior classes had been respectively the freshman
and sophomore classes during Leslie’s senior year at Hamilton, which had
been also the year of her expulsion from college. At that particular
time the attitude of the two lower classes had been one of horrified
disapproval of the seventeen San Soucians who had been expelled from
Hamliton for hazing a student. That was almost as much as any of them
had ever learned about the affair. The girls who knew the disagreeable
truth were Marjorie Dean and her intimates. Silence with them was honor.
They knew a great many other derogatory facts about Leslie Cairns and
her methods which they kept strictly sub rosa.
Doris was ready to welcome Leslie with warmth. She sorely lacked
companions of interest. She had begun to grow bored to satiety by
admiration. The freshies’ and sophs’ adoration for her was too
superficial to be satisfying. They enjoyed rushing the college beauty.
Each class liked to parade her on the campus and fête her at Baretti’s,
the Colonial or at their pet Hamilton tea shops as a triumphant class
trophy. She was selfish, but not shallow; indifferent, but not vapid. It
was in her composition to give as well as receive. Because she had been
surfeited with adulation she had lately experienced a vague unrestful
desire to turn from the knowledge of her own charms to an admiration of
some one else.
First among the students of Hamilton she admired Leila Harper. Robin
Page was her second “crush.” Muriel made a third in a trio which had won
her difficult fancy. None of these, however, were likely to become her
friends. She would never make overtures to them. She was confident that
they would never make further friendly advances to her.
Such a state of mind on her part augured a hearty welcome for Leslie.
Doris hurried to her room after her last afternoon class, hastily got
into the new fawn English walking suit, recently arrived from a Bond
Street shop, and made a buoyant exit from the Hall and to the garage for
the white car. It was a clear, sunshiny day. She thought Leslie might
like to take a ride in the Dazzler. Leslie had probably hired a taxicab
in which to come from town to the Colonial.
It was a very short distance from the garage to the Colonial. Arrived
there, Doris saw a solitary car parked in front of the restaurant. It
was a black roadster of newest type and most expensive make. She jumped
to an instant conclusion that it must belong to Leslie.
Doris parked the Dazzler behind the roadster and went into the tea room
to meet Leslie. She found her seated at one of the several square
mission oak tables engaged in a languid perusal of a menu card.
“How are you, Goldie? Have a seat at the table and a bite with yours
truly.” Leslie waved Doris into the chair opposite her. Then she
stretched an arm lazily across the table and offered Doris her hand.
“Very well, thank you, Leslie. How have you been getting along?” Doris
returned, with only a shade of her usual drawl. “I _am_ glad to see you.
I have missed you.”
“A good miss.” Leslie shrugged an accompaniment to her laconic comment.
“Were you surprised to hear me on the ’phone?”
“Of course. I was surprised when you wrote me from New York. I had no
idea you had left Hamilton. I was afraid of being conditioned in math. I
was studying like mad and hadn’t time just then to call you on the
telephone at the hotel. I knew you were very busy.” So far as she went
Doris was truthful.
“Oh, forget it. I believe what you say, Goldie, but you might have added
that you were all fed up with me. I know I had a beastly grouch after
the New York trip. It had teeth and claws. I had business trouble. That
sneaking carpenter who is trying to swing the dormitory job for Bean and
her precious Beanstalks coaxed all my men over to the Beggar Ranch. He
told them a lot of fairy stories, I suppose. Anyway, I had to send for
one of my father’s best men, an Italian financier, who understands
Italian peasants. Even he couldn’t undo the mischief that scamp, Graham,
had done.
“I finally had to send for my father. He fired the whole shooting match.
I’m done with that garage flivver. My father said it wouldn’t pay me
very well in the end. He was sore at me for wasting my time around this
burg. He tried to make me promise I’d go to New York and never think
about Hamilton again. He can’t stand the college since the precious
Board gave me such an unfair deal.”
“Why, that’s dreadful, Leslie; about your garage I mean.” Doris had a
certain amount of sympathy for Leslie. She was not specially interested
in business, but she decided that Leslie had been badly treated.
“I’ll say it is,” Leslie made grim response. “Oh, never mind. I’m still
worth a few dollars. Did you see my new car out in front?”
“Yes—I had an idea that car must belong to you. It suggested you to me
at first sight.” Doris smiled across the table at her returned friend.
“I had no idea you’d have a car. I brought the Dazzler on purpose. I
thought we might like to take a ride.”
“Gaylord and I came here from New York in that car,” Leslie informed
with an inflection of pride. “My father doesn’t know I’m here. He sailed
for Europe last Thursday. I know positively that he went, too. I was at
the dock and saw his steamer cut loose from Manhattan.”
“Were you?” Doris exhibited her usual polite reticence regarding
Leslie’s father. Long since she had discovered that Leslie did not like
to answer questions about him. “It is rather a long drive from New York,
isn’t it. Your motor coat and hat are chic.”
“So is your suit. I suppose it floated straight across the pond to you.
My coat came from the Clayham, in New York. But it’s some bang-up
English shop, now let me tell you.” Leslie showed brightening
satisfaction of her own greenish-gray motor coat and round hat of the
same material.
Leslie’s own remarks about her father were “fairy stories” so far as her
having seen him entered into them. She had not seen him, nor had she
received any letters from him other than the peremptory one in which he
had scathingly reprimanded her and ordered her to New York. Nevertheless
she _had_ seen him sail for Europe in the “_Arcadia_,” though he had not
known of her presence on the dock when the steamer cleared.
She had gone to the dock in a cheap tan rain-coat, a red worsted Tam
o’Shanter cap and a pair of shell-rimmed glasses. Mingling with the
crowd on the dock she was confident her disguise was effective. Her
father’s manager, Mr. Carrington, had furnished her with the information
of the date and hour of her father’s departure for Europe. She had not
seen him since the day when she had called at her father’s offices.
Neither had he seen her father for more than a few minutes at a time
during which no mention of Leslie had been made. He had been led by her
to believe that she had planned a pleasant steamer surprise for her
father. He had therefore kept his own counsel and his promise to Leslie.
He had sent her a note to the Essenden which had been duly forwarded to
her new address.
“I should think you’d rather be in New York than here.” Doris gave a
half envious sigh. “There’s nothing here of interest off the campus.”
“Oh, I had to come here while Peter the Great was away.” Leslie
volunteered this much of an explanation of her visit. “I must get a line
on what was done on the garage so I’ll know just how much money I put
into it. My father will want to know that right off the bat if he offers
it for sale as it stands. You and I will have some bully rides and
drives while I’m here, Goldie. I shan’t be such a grouch as I was right
after Christmas. How are things at the knowledge shop? How is Bean? Had
any fusses with her or her Beanstalks lately?” Leslie’s expression grew
lowering as she mentioned Marjorie.
“Miss Dean and Miss Macy aren’t at Wayland Hall now. They’re staying at
Hamilton Arms. I don’t know whether they are coming back to the Hall
again or not.” Doris had expected the information might elicit surprise
from her companion. She smiled in faint amusement of Leslie’s astonished
features, then added the crowning bit of news. “Miss Dean was chosen by
Miss Hamilton to write Brooke Hamilton’s biography.”
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