I’M SORRY
With Leila’s muttered comments in her ears Marjorie had hard work to
keep a sober face and maintain an air of pleasant impersonality toward
Leslie Cairns. She could think of no reason why Leslie Cairns should
speak to her. She thought Leslie could hardly have guessed her identity
since the Romp. Certainly on that night Leslie had not recognized her.
The fact that she had amiably permitted Marjorie to conduct her to the
door and freedom was sufficient proof in itself.
“Good afternoon, Miss Dean.” Leslie’s salutation was laconic. Marjorie
thought she was looking particularly well in a sports suit and hat of
bright brown English weave. Her irregular, dark features bore no trace
of ill humor. Instead her face was singularly impassive.
“Good afternoon, Miss Cairns.” Marjorie’s clear brown eyes looked
straight into Leslie’s small black ones. She could think of nothing to
say. She therefore waited for Leslie to make the next advance in
conversation.
“It’s about the other night, I’d like to speak to you,” Leslie declared
with somber steadiness.
“Pardon me. I am willing to listen to whatever you may wish to say to
me, Miss Cairns, but—I am with Miss Harper,” Marjorie reminded with
candid courtesy.
“Miss Harper is welcome to hear what I have to say to you. She probably
knows already that I—”
“She knows nothing of—of—certain things from me. Pardon me for
interrupting you.” Marjorie smiled friendly warning.
“I am sure she doesn’t,” Leslie agreed with an odd energy which brought
a faint flush of surprise to Marjorie’s cheeks. “She must have heard it
somewhere on the campus, though. I thought possibly that screech
owl—I’ll say Miss Peyton, one’s her natural name, the other only a
surname, had published me on the main bulletin board before this.”
Mention of Julia Peyton filled Leslie’s tones with contemptuous sarcasm.
“Hardly.” The quick sturdiness of the retort brought a peculiar gleam to
Leslie’s eyes.
“It was a mistake—losing my temper as I did.” Leslie’s next speech came
with shamed apology. “I don’t know that it matters specially—now. The
mischief’s done. I had no business in the gym that night.” She looked at
Marjorie as though asking for an opinion.
Leila sat the picture of immobility. Her hands loosely clasped the
wheel. Her blue eyes stared straight ahead. She affected deep interest
in the immediate road ahead of the car. She had had no inkling of what
Leslie meant until the latter had made pertinent allusion to the
gymnasium. Light had then broken upon her acute Irish intelligence.
Comprehension threatened to break up her immobile expression.
“That is of course true from—from a certain standpoint,” Marjorie
admitted. “If you wish my personal opinion,” she smiled; “I can’t see
but that your presence there was an added attraction to the crowd. I
have fought for democracy at Hamilton, Miss Cairns. I can only feel my
attitude to be democratic now. I believe that you went to the Romp
merely to have fun. There could be no harm in such a motive.”
“There wasn’t!” Leslie cried in sharply anxious agreement. “I had grown
tired of myself and only wanted to have a good time. I wouldn’t do such
a stunt, again, though. I’m through with such performances. I’m through
with everything,” she added with a dull kind of desperation.
“I think I understand how you felt about going to the Romp,” Marjorie
said gently.
“Still you wouldn’t have done so. That’s the difference between your
disposition and mine. Never mind about that. I’ve just one thing to tell
you. I wish you’d believe me. I’m all through trying to make trouble for
you at Hamilton or any place else.” Leslie’s earnestness was
unmistakable.
“It—truly, Miss Cairns, it doesn’t make—” Marjorie colored with growing
confusion.
“Oh, but it does. I want you to know, Bean—” It was Leslie who now
turned very red. Before she could offer an abashed apology Marjorie’s
merry laugh rang out.
“Please don’t.” She gaily warded off apology. “You can’t imagine how
truly fond I’ve become of being called ‘Bean.’ It’s funniest of two or
three pet names the girls have given me. Miss Macy has even composed
some funny verses which she calls ‘Jingles to Bean.’”
“What?” A slow smile succeeded Leslie’s momentary air of uncertainty as
to whether she had heard aright.
“You have a keen sense of humor, Miss Cairns,” Marjorie generously
continued. “Your costume the other night showed your appreciation of
funny things. You spoke of Miss Peyton. She was unfair with you at the
dance. I was glad you walked away from her, and sorry that you should
have been aggravated by her to the point of answering.” Marjorie tried
to lead the subject away from intimate personalities. She disliked to
make apologies. She disliked far more to receive them. She desired no
promise of future rectitude from Leslie.
“Leila,” she addressed Leila’s clear-cut Irish profile, “have you heard
that Miss Cairns was masked at the Romp?”
“I have not.” Leila slowly turned her face toward Leslie. “May I inquire
what your costume was? I was not in the gym until a very few minutes
before the unmasking,” she explained.
“I was just a farmer, blue overalls, gingham shirt and all that sort of
thing,” Leslie described briefly. “I happened to get hold of a
particularly silly-looking mask. That was the funny part of the
costume.”
“And now I will tell you the funny part of your adventure.” Leila
regarded the girl she had ranked as her pet aversion with a not unkindly
glance. “I have heard nothing about you in connection with this
funny-face farmer, but I have heard plenty of myself. It seems I had the
credit for being that one. I was not on the floor while you were. I
waited in my room so as to tease the girls. I had bet with a crowd of
freshies that none of them could pick me out in that rustic mob.”
“Why, that,—” Marjorie began.
“Is why there was a crowd at my heels all the time,” finished Leslie
rather excitedly. She and Marjorie both laughed.
Even Leila’s austerity of feature relaxed into an amused smile. “I must
have come into the gym when you were preparing to leave it for I caught
not even a glimpse of such a costume as you had. Now a rumor is drifting
merrily about the campus that I was the funny mask, but that I changed
to an Irish peasant costume to puzzle the freshies.”
“How utterly providential!” Marjorie’s opinion was cordially hearty. “I
am afraid I shall be too busy from now on to enlighten the campus
dwellers concerning their fond delusion.”
“I have plenty to do myself,” was Leila’s vague inference.
Leslie’s eyes traveled from one to the other of the pair of amused
faces. Were these the two Hamilton girls she had hated so unreasonably
when a student in college with them? She now dejectedly wondered why she
had hated them.
“There’s something I must say to you,” she persisted to Marjorie. “I
used to hate you. That is, I thought I hated you. After I found out who
you were I knew I could never hate you any more. You took with you all
my weapons of offense. Why should I ever have hated you? The answer goes
back to myself. You ought to hate me. But I know you don’t. That makes
me double hate myself.” Leslie made an impatient movement of the head,
indicating her distaste for herself.
“I never hated you, Miss Cairns. I’ve felt dreadfully exasperated with
you at times,” Marjorie honestly admitted. “I haven’t felt that way
toward you for a long time,” she added with her winsome smile.
“That’s good news.” Leslie faintly answered the smile. Her hands began
to tighten on the wheel. “Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Miss Monroe had
nothing to do with my campus lark. I planned it myself. She knew of it,
but it wouldn’t be fair to censure her for what I would have done
anyway. Will you stand by her if—if any gossip should start about the
affair?” Leslie looked almost appealingly from one to the other of the
two Travelers.
“You need have no fears in that respect,” Marjorie promised staunchly.
“There will be little or nothing said,” was Leila’s dryly authoritative
prediction.
“Thank you both. That’s all, I believe, except—I’m sorry. I’m saying it,
though about five years too late,” Leslie declared bitterly.
Marjorie made no verbal reply. She bent upon Leslie a glance brimming
with toleration. Its frank kindness made Leslie feel like bursting into
tears. Pride alone kept her from it.
After a moment Marjorie said: “We have something to thank you for, Miss
Cairns; the hundred dollar note you dropped into the money box the
evening of the Romp. We understand and appreciate the spirit that
prompted the gift. When I say we, I mean the Travelers.”
Marjorie made the assumption boldly, hoping thus to take Leslie
unawares. She succeeded. Leslie colored hotly. Hastily she started the
motor. “Good-bye.” She smiled a queer, wry smile; nodded first to Leila,
then to Marjorie. Next instant her car had passed theirs and was
speeding away from them.
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