THE TRUTH ABOUT “BEAN”
Doris had only time enough to hurry back to the Hall for her wraps
before starting out again to meet Leslie. She did not regret her blunt
words to Julia. The gossiping, jealous sophomore had deserved them.
Doris had grown tired of Julia’s impudent interference into her personal
affairs. This time Julia had gone too far. Doris had decided to drop
her, oblivious of what the sophomore might afterward say of her. She
believed sturdily that she could defend her own position at Hamilton.
“You certainly deserted me,” was Leslie’s greeting as Doris stepped into
the roadster, parked at the central gates. “Last night, I mean,” she
added with her slow smile.
“I never meant to,” Doris apologized. “You said you preferred to look
out for yourself. I saw you in the middle of that crowd of freshies and
was worried about you. By the time I could get free of my partner to go
to you I saw you on the way out of the gym.”
“Thanks to little yellow gingham ruffles, Leslie Adoree broke away from
the merry rustic scene with colors flying and her false face still on. I
had a good time, though, while it lasted.”
“Did that unwieldy umbrella really trip a couple who were dancing?”
Doris inquired abruptly. She was anxious to learn whether Julia had told
her the truth in the matter.
“It really did.” Leslie’s face suddenly lost its half humorous
expression. “One of them was a screech owl posing as a rustic youth. Her
voice had a familiar sound. Still there are so many varieties of screech
owl on the campus,” she ended sarcastically.
“The ‘screech owl’ was Miss Peyton. The other girl was—”
“Miss Peyton. No wonder I felt like pitching in and fighting her while I
had my farm togs on.” Leslie’s tone indicated her disgust. “She was
outrageous, Goldie. I tried to stay dumb, but I couldn’t. I finally said
two or three pithy things to her. Little yellow gingham ruffles was all
right. She tried to keep us from fussing. Afterward she came down to
where I was and walked me away from a gang who had been trying to rag
me. She walked me up the gym to the vestibule door and joked with me all
the way. She had on a pale yellow gingham dress with little yellow
ruffles and a white hat with—
“What did she say to you, Leslie?” was Doris’s anxious interruption. “I
mean when you reached the door.”
“That was the queer part. She knew me. I’m almost sure of it. She didn’t
say a word about my going, but she knew I wanted to get out of the gym
before unmasking. She went to the door with me to keep off trouble. She
was a good sport; an upper class girl probably. Some one I may have met.
I know a few juniors and seniors who were freshies and sophs when I was
a senior.” Leslie gave an inaudible sigh. Last night’s frolic had
brought back vividly the memory of her failure as a student.
“The girl in the yellow gingham ruffled dress was Miss Dean,” Doris said
in a peculiar tone.
“What?” In her surprise Leslie allowed the roadster to run off the
course on the pike she was keeping by several inches. She instantly
brought the machine back to course. Apparently struck dumb, she leaned
forward, staring interestedly at the road ahead. Just then she could
think of nothing to say. Presently she found speech again.
“Yes, it was Bean,” she said dully. “I know it now. Why didn’t you come
and walk me away from her when you saw us together?” Leslie demanded,
her accent displeased.
“I didn’t know then that the mask you were with was Miss Dean. I didn’t
know it until I saw her after the unmasking.”
“She did me a good turn.” Leslie stopped, her face reddening. It was the
first time she had ever said a good word for Marjorie to any one. “How
soon after I got away from the gym did the whistle blow?” she inquired
soberly.
“Not more than two or three minutes. You got away just in time. I didn’t
know about Miss Peyton and Miss Dean and the umbrella business until
this afternoon. Miss Peyton told me. I must have been outside the gym
when it happened. I was out on the campus with a crowd for a few
minutes.”
Doris had wisely decided not to tell Leslie of what Julia Peyton had
said. Julia was fond of telling her friends and classmates anything
disagreeable which she might have heard of them. Doris abhorred the
pernicious habit. Instead she began to quiz her companion about the
umbrella mishap. She had a curiosity to know Julia Peyton’s exact part
in it. She had not wholly credited the sophomore’s side of the story.
Leslie answered, at first rather abstractedly. Her mind was still
centered on the “good turn” which “Bean” had done her. Presently she
dropped into a humorous account of the accident which made Doris laugh.
Julia had declared Leslie to be lawless and dishonorable. Doris wondered
if it were really true of her. Leslie had treated her fairly. She began
to believe she liked Leslie despite the latter’s occasional spells of
domineering insolence. She made up her mind then and there to learn if
she could the history of Leslie’s and Marjorie Dean’s enmity from its
beginning.
Leslie’s account of the umbrella incident, humorous and truthful,
differed considerably from that of Julia Peyton. Doris wondered if Julia
had not also misrepresented matters to her about Muriel at Christmas
time. Then she remembered regretfully that Muriel had admitted having
said the very things which had offended her pride. In the present
instance she chose to believe Leslie rather than Julia.
“Miss Harding won the prize for having the funniest costume,” Doris
ended a little silent interval between the two girls. “She had on that
ridiculous imitation of a riding costume. You remember we were laughing
at her? The prize was a large jar of stick candy. Your costume was
really funnier than hers. Your mask was so screamingly silly.”
“Bean said I had the funniest costume,” Leslie commented shortly. Her
dark face grew darker as she sent the roadster speeding over the smooth
pike. So it had been the girl she most disliked who had conducted her
merrily and surely out of an embarrassing situation for which only
herself was to blame. Her mind began suggesting petty spiteful reasons
for Marjorie’s kindly act. She dismissed them in the instant of their
birth. None of them were honest.
Only one conclusion remained to be drawn in the matter. Leslie faced it
unwillingly. To give it credence meant the crashing down of all the
carefully built-up cases against “Bean” which she had cherished for over
four years. In spite of the wilful and malicious attempts she had made
against Marjorie’s welfare and peace of mind, “Bean,” it now appeared,
had no grudge against her.
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