LOYAL TO NO ONE
In the dining-room at Wayland Hall that evening plenty of curious and
speculative glances were cast at the round dozen of Hamilton’s
staunchest children as they made merry at a special table which Miss
Remson had provided for them.
From the next table to theirs the five Bertram girls exchanged
occasional laughing signals and remarks with the distinguished little
group of post graduates, seniors and one member of the faculty, the
youngest though she happened to be. Aside from the warm friendliness of
Gussie Forbes and her four chums there emanated from the other table of
girls a peculiarly chilling atmosphere. It hinted of displeasure; a
displeasure which stopped just this side of hostility.
“The sophs and freshies in the house can’t see us for a minute,” Jerry
said to Leila in an undertone as they were awaiting the serving of the
dessert. “Feel the chill. Get me?”
“Tell me nothing.” Leila cast a grim glance about the dining-room.
Suddenly her grimness vanished into a characteristic flash of white
teeth which always signified her utter amusement. “It is the Battle of
Wayland Hall we shall be fighting before spring with a number of
distinguished P. G. generals in the thick of the fray. It is the sophs
who are ready now to roar at us. The freshies here will but echo the
sophs’ roars.”
“Wayland Hall has been a regular hot-bed of trouble since the soph
president was elected.” Jerry used the same guarded tones. “With Gus and
the disappointed Ice Queen under the same roof can you wonder?”
“I cannot.” Leila’s shrug was eloquent. “I have not been so completely
disgusted with a set of girls since the bad days of the Sans.”
“Bad days of the Sans?” Vera, seated at Leila’s left, had caught the
Irish girl’s words. She now repeated them inquiringly. “What tales of
ancient history am I hearing?”
“Ancient history that is trying to repeat itself,” Leila returned with
dry sarcasm. “I have been muttering in Jeremiah’s ear that we are not
favorites at the Hall.”
“It’s a case of top-lofty sophs and freshie-fresh freshmen.” Vera gave a
wise nod. “The traditional meek and lowly freshie is rapidly becoming an
almost extinct species.”
“So it would appear this year,” Jerry agreed with an appraising survey
of the long dining-room. Her glance rested for a moment on Doris Monroe,
then traveled on to the students who sat at table with her.
“There are the members of the trouble bureau,” she told Leila. “Look in
the direction I’m looking and you’ll know who I mean.”
“I heard something about a trouble bureau.” Marjorie, next to Jerry on
Jerry’s right, bent a laughing face forward to her room-mate. “What?”
“First time I ever head you commit a Cairns-ism. For further information
about the trouble bureau, find the Ice Queen,” Jerry directed not
without humor.
“Oh; I understand. But I won’t look down at her. If she happened to see
us looking at her she would probably be offended, just as Gussie Forbes
was when she noticed us eyeing her the first time we saw her at
Baretti’s. I learned a lesson then. I don’t intend to make the same
mistake again.” Marjorie spoke with the utmost good humor. She was not
preaching to her chums, and they knew it.
“Merely because you’re such an old friend of mine, Bean, to confide in
you doesn’t mean that I’m gossiping, I’ll say a word or two about the
trouble bureau. That tall soph with the straight black hair, black moon
eyes and pasty-white face is the chief disturber. She seems to be
directing the Ice Queen’s campaign. Muriel says she comes to see Miss
Monroe about every half hour until the ten-thirty bell puts the kibosh
on her visits.”
Unlike Marjorie, Jerry could not refrain from voicing her disapproval of
Doris Monroe and her group of sophomore satellites living at Wayland
Hall. “The next agitator to Moon Eyes is the pudgy, red-haired soph with
the mechanical voice. Their real names happen to be Miss Peyton and Miss
Carter, but Muriel and I have made a few changes,” Jerry declared with a
whole-hearted grin. “Ahem! We call the pair the Prime Minister and the
Phonograph. So true to life! What?”
Marjorie, Leila and Vera could not help laughing at the names Jerry and
Muriel had waggishly applied to the two sophs. Miss Carter’s speech had
a habit of clicking itself from her lips with the mechanical precision
of a phonograph. She had a wooden manner of carriage and walk which
further added to the impression she gave of something mechanical. As for
the name Muriel had picked for moon-eyed Miss Peyton, Muriel herself
probably best understood thus far its fitness as applied to the tall,
austere looking young woman.
“The traditions of Hamilton say nothing about the naming habit.” Leila
shot a playful glance at Jerry.
“Er-r—well, it’s remembering the stranger within our gate in a kind of
way,” Jerry defended. “Now that Muriel and I have named ’em specially we
can remember ’em so much the better.”
“Such ignoble sentiments from a Hamilton P. G.! I am shocked!” Vera’s
small hands went up in simulated displeasure.
“You’ll get over the shock if you don’t stop to think about it,” Jerry
assured her. “You may even learn to admire the Harding-Macy
classification.”
“It’s certainly time the Travelers got together,” Leila said, now more
than half serious in her observation. “We must protect the Hall.”
“I am with you in that, Leila,” Marjorie observed, the light of sudden,
unalterable purpose flaring strongly in her eyes. “We have Miss Remson
as well as the girls here to think of. We’ve been through a siege of a
house divided against itself once here. We must somehow not let that
calamity overtake the Hall again.”
“How are we going to stop it, Marvelous Manager, with Gentleman Gus and
the Ice Queen all ready to challenge each other to a duel?” quizzed
Jerry. “I don’t say it can’t be done. I have great faith in you and your
works, Bean.” She beamed patronizingly. “I merely ask you: How is it
going to be done?”
“I wish I knew,” Marjorie laughingly confessed. “The Travelers will have
to find a way to teach our freshies and sophs here to live up to the
Hymn of Hamilton. That means we’ll have to teach them without letting
them know they are being taught.”
Jerry looked impishly impressed. “What a simple pleasant task!” she
exclaimed with pretended enthusiasm. “I should say we’d better cut out
dessert, go right upstairs and plan for it. What’s dessert? Nothing but
fresh cocoanut layer-cake and coffee gelatine slathered with whipped
cream. Who cares for any such trifles?” Jerry waved an airy hand. She
made no move to leave her chair, however.
“Only you. The rest of us have no longing for sweet stuff. But we are so
kind as to keep you company while you eat,” Leila made bland assurance.
When the dessert was served the Irish girl deftly abstracted Jerry’s
portion of cake and gelatine from under Jerry’s eyes and before the
waitress had more than placed the dishes on the table. Up the line went
the cake and gelatine until they reached Phil, who sat at the head of
the table. Phil welcomed them with effusion and grew tantalizing. She
gave a dozen flimsy reasons supposed to justify her claim to it. The
table rang with laughter so spontaneous and good-natured more than one
of the freshmen at the Hall felt a secret sympathy spring up within for
the girls whom they had heard characterized by Doris Monroe’s most
ardent supporters as “meddlers and hypocrites” and of having shown
marked favoritism.
“If we were to make half the noise they are making Miss Remson would
call us to account for it,” sourly observed Julia Peyton to Clara
Carter. “I’ve spoken to her several times about the racket that goes on
every evening in Miss Forbes’ room and in that Miss Dean’s room, too.
It’s been worse since Miss Harding came to the Hall.”
“I know it,” Miss Carter nodded an eager red head. “Doris says she
simply won’t allow Miss Harding to carry on in her room the way she does
when she’s with her own crowd. She’s generally to be found on the campus
with some of them, screaming and laughing. Doris met her and Miss Dean
when she was with that awfully rich Miss Cairns this very afternoon. She
said she felt so mortified at being obliged to speak to Miss Harding.
She doesn’t speak to Miss Dean at all. She told me she had good reasons
for ignoring _her_, but she preferred not to give them.”
“Humph.” Julia cast a jealous glance at her companion as the two
sophomores rose to leave the table. Each girl was jealous of the
condescending friendship which Doris Monroe had chosen to give her
companion. She felt that she stood a trifle closer to Doris than the
other.
Doris was fully aware of this state of affairs. When she had recovered
from the sweetness of her first triumph at being “rushed” she made up
her mind not to allow her soph and freshie admirers to fail in
allegiance to her banner. She soon learned that her selfish air of
indifference was one of her greatest assets. It added individuality to
her beauty. It impressed her worshippers with a high idea of the value
of her acquaintance.
She had inherited this trait of indifference from her mother, whose
counterpart she was. She had, as Marjorie suspected, a strong
inclination to honesty, one of her father’s finest traits. Thus she
could not have pretended an indifference she did not feel. Since it was
in her soul to be this she accepted the benefits she received from it
with secret satisfaction. She was privately glad that she had no desire
to be impulsive and readily responsive.
“_I_ heard that the Miss Cairns you mentioned was expelled from Hamilton
College,” Julia said disagreeably. She was desirous of over-topping
Clara’s boastful reference to “Doris” and the intimacy it implied.
“Who told you?” Clara’s tone was challenging.
“I’ll not say who. I heard it, and it came to me directly from someone
who knew,” Julia made mysterious response.
“I—I—haven’t heard any such story as that. I don’t believe it’s true.
I’ll ask Doris. _She’ll_ tell me,” Clara ended, tossing her
flame-colored head.
“You’re very foolish to think of asking Doris,” disapproved Julia, her
shaggy black brows drawing together. “She’ll set you down as
impertinent. Even if she should know she wouldn’t tell _you_.” She gave
a short, sarcastic laugh.
“I’m not afraid to ask her,” Clara doggedly persisted. “_You_ may be,
but _I’m_ not.”
This was the beginning of an angry discussion between the two sophomores
which lasted all the way upstairs and for several minutes after the door
of their room was slammed behind them by Clara. So vigorously did she
slam it that the sharp sound reached the bevy of Travelers as they came
trooping gaily upstairs. Robin was singing softly for them an old
plantation song: “Get you ready there’s a meetin’ here tonight,” and
Phil was patting her hands in time to it.
“Bing, bang; who fired the first shot?” exclaimed Muriel.
“It did sound almost like a shot, didn’t it? I haven’t heard such a
splendid imitation of banging a door since the Sans used to vent their
outraged feelings on the doors,” chuckled Vera.
“That may have been the first shot fired in the Battle of Wayland Hall,”
Jerry gigglingly surmised to Leila.
“Then it was wasted on us,” laughed Leila. “It will take more than the
banging of a few doors to rouse our ire to the point of battle. Though
make no mistake: ‘The air is full of knives,’ as we say in Ireland.”
In the room occupied by Clara Carter and Julia Peyton the air was indeed
full of verbal knives. Both had voted for Doris Monroe for president of
the sophomore class. Both had pledged themselves, with certain other
girls at the Hall, to “boost” Doris and “down” Augusta Forbes. Now they
were squabbling fiercely over the lovely, indifferent object of their
girl devotion. In their jealous anger with each other they had blindly
overlooked the old saying: “In union there is strength.”
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