MARJORIE DEAN POST-GRADUATE
by
PAULINE LESTER
Author of
“The Marjorie Dean High School Series,”
“The Marjorie Dean College Series,”
“The Marjorie Dean Post-Graduate Series,” etc.
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
Printed in U. S. A.
* * * * * *
THE MARJORIE DEAN POST-GRADUATE SERIES
A SERIES FOR GIRLS 12 TO 18 YEARS OF AGE
By PAULINE LESTER
MARJORIE DEAN, POST-GRADUATE
MARJORIE DEAN, MARVELOUS MANAGER
MARJORIE DEAN AT HAMILTON ARMS
MARJORIE DEAN’S ROMANCE
* * * * * *
Copyright, 1925
By A. L. Burt Company
MARJORIE DEAN, POST-GRADUATE
Made in “U. S. A.”
CHAPTER I.—ON THE SANDS
“It’s too perfect a night to stay on shore, girls and boys. Let’s go for
a moonlight cruise in the Oriole!” Hal Macy sprang up from the white
sands where he had been devotedly lounging at Marjorie Dean’s feet and
held out his hands to her.
“Oh, glorious!” Marjorie gaily accepted the proffered hands. She
laughed, with the sheer pleasure of youth, as Hal swung her to her feet.
“My, what a strong person you are, Hal Macy!” she lightly commented as
she freed her hands from Hal’s lingering clasp.
“Glad _you_ think so,” emphasized Hal. He could not help wishing
Marjorie were not quite so matter-of-fact.
“_I_ don’t think so,” promptly disagreed Danny Seabrooke. “Macy is a
weakling; a mere muscleless infant compared to me.”
“Oh, see here, Danny Seabrooke, you’ll have to eat that. Think I’ll
stand for any such talk? Eat it now, or else prove it,” challenged Hal.
“I can prove it,” Danny waved confidently. “Just watch me lift Geraldine
from the shifting sands.”
“Yes, just watch him,” drawled Lawrence Armitage. He took up a guitar,
temporarily idle on the sands, and began to strum it lightly. His deep
blue eyes rested mirthfully on Danny and Jerry.
“Wait a second,” Danny elaborately braced his feet in the sand. “Now,
ready! Heave, heave, ho!”
Jerry suddenly let go of his hands and dropped back on the beach. “No,
thank you.” She pretended displeasure. “I don’t care for your wonderful
assistance.” She directed a scornful glance at her would-be helper.
“You did that on purpose,” accused Danny. “You are a cruel, cruel girl.
Suppose I had lost my balance and dug my nose into the sand?”
“Sorry you didn’t,” was the unfeeling reply.
“Squabbling again,” Laurie reached out a helping hand to Jerry and drew
her to her feet. Danny looked sadly on.
“Please forgive me and continue to regard me as your friend. That’s all
I ask of you,” he pleaded with stony Jerry.
“You talk like a popular song,” she criticized. She broke into smiles
when he knelt on the sand before her and contritely offered her his
hand.
“Was that a compliment?” Danny grinned hopefully.
“Why should I throw bouquets at you? Can you think of a reason?” Jerry
asked him. “I can’t think of one.”
“Neither can I,” Danny agreed, and the squabblers burst into laughter.
“Isn’t the moon wonderful tonight?” Standing beside Hal on the wide
strip of gleaming beach Marjorie worshipped the white night. “Leila
recites an old Irish poem about moonlight that must have been written
for this night. It goes like this:
“The magic of yon sailing moon
Lures my poor heartstrings out of me;
God’s moonshine whitens the lagoon;
The earth’s a silver mystery.”
Hal listened. His mind was centered on Marjorie rather than on the
quaint bit of verse she was reciting. In her white lingerie frock, her
vividly beautiful face raised toward the pale glory of the drifting
moon, her loveliness filled Hal’s boyish heart with worship.
He would have liked to tell her that he thought her far more wonderful
than either the silvery moon or the most exquisite bit of Irish verse
that had ever been composed. Long friendship with Marjorie warned him
against such an avowal. She was so different from most girls about
compliments. She did not like to be told that she had done well, while
she positively loathed being told she was beautiful. She had a clever
way of politely ignoring a compliment, then immediately changing a
subject from personal to impersonal which Hal considered maddening.
Since the first week in July when the Deans had arrived at Severn Beach,
there to spend a part of the summer, Hal had been trying to decide
whether or not he should allow another summer to pass without telling
Marjorie of his love for her. On that memorable autumn evening of last
year when Constance and Laurie had announced their early approaching
marriage Hal had been dejectedly certain that Marjorie had nothing to
give him save friendship. He had resolved then never to ask her to marry
him unless he should come to believe that she had experienced a change
of heart toward him.
Lately, since Marjorie had come to stay at Severn Beach, where the Macys
usually spent the summers, Hal had been sorely tempted to break his
proud resolution. Constance and Laurie had returned from their winter in
Europe and were visiting Hal and Jerry at Cliff House, the apartment
hotel in which the Macy family lived. Their perfect happiness made Hal
wonder wistfully why it was that Marjorie could not love him even half
so fondly as Constance loved Laurie. He had been Marjorie’s faithful
cavalier for the same number of years that Laurie had been Constance’s.
Now Laurie had won Connie for his wife, while he and Marjorie were
still, as she had often said, “just good friends.”
This disheartening thought now flashed through his brain for perhaps the
hundredth time that week. The calm friendly glance he forced himself to
bend on Marjorie as she finished quoting the verse bore no sign of his
disquieting reflections.
“Bully for the Irish!” he exclaimed with deceiving heartiness.
“You’re not a bit under the magic spell of the white moonshine,” she
rebuked with a laughing, upward glance at Hal.
“How do you know I’m not?” His tones were teasing, but into his eyes had
leaped a sudden purposeful gleam which told a different story.
“Moonlight affects different persons in different ways. Wait till we
take to the launch. Then I’ll turn moony and sing sentimental songs.
I’ll give you a fine imitation of a moonstruck nut. I wouldn’t dare try
it on shore. I might be run in for disturbing the peace.”
“Run in for disturbing the peace?” inquired a horrified voice at
Marjorie’s elbow. Danny Seabrooke peered apprehensively around Marjorie
at Hal. “Ah, I understand.” He grew apologetic. “You weren’t speaking of
me. You meant your—well—er—” Danny drew down his freckled face very
sorrowfully. “When did it happen, Macy?”
“It hasn’t happened yet, but it will soon,” Hal promised with cool
significance.
“I shan’t be here to see it. I’m going to take a walk up the beach with
Geraldine.” Danny hastily fell behind a few steps and took Jerry by a
plump arm. “Come along,” he urged. “It’s not safe around here.”
“It’s safe enough for me.” Jerry briskly shook off Danny’s detaining
hand. “I’m going out in the Oriole. Hurry up, you sentimental
strollers,” she called over one shoulder to Constance and Laurie. They
had paused for a moment, hand in hand, and were raptly gazing out to
sea. “Come out of lovers’ lane and join the crowd.”
“Have a little more regard for our married dignity, Jeremiah,” Laurie
reminded. “Kindly remember that Connie and I came down to the beach this
evening solely to look after you four children.”
“Much obliged, but Dan-yell is the only one who needs a guardian of this
illustrious bunch.” Jerry bowed ironical thanks.
“All right for you, Jurry-miar Macy. I tried to be pleasant with you. I
respectfully called you Geraldine. But no more!” Danny shook a
displeased finger at Jerry. “I’m going to walk beside Constance.”
“Poor Connie,” groaned Jerry.
“Fortunate Connie, you mean,” corrected Danny with a vast smile. “Do
talk to me, Constance. Forget your husband for five seconds. You look so
sympathetic. But you’re not.” Danny fixed an accusing glance on laughing
Constance. “You’re laughing at me.”
“Why shouldn’t I laugh at you, Danny Seabrooke? You’re so funny and
foolish.”
“Funny and foolish.” Danny cocked his head on one side and considered.
“Nope, that’s not sympathy. I’ll have to try again. Let me see. Marjorie
might appreciate me.”
With a forward dive he caught Marjorie by one arm and began walking her
rapidly up the beach and away from Hal. “Good-night, Mr. Macy,” he flung
back over one shoulder.
“Not yet,” Hal cleared the widening space between him and Danny almost
at a leap. “Now Dan-yell!” He grabbed Danny by the shoulders; spun him
round until he faced down the beach. A vigorous push from Hal’s avenging
arms sent Danny careering down the beach at a mad gallop.
“Never touched me!” he sent back defiantly to Hal. He gave an agile
sideways bounce, barely managing to dodge Jerry, Laurie and Constance in
his headlong flight. “Good-bye. I’m never coming back!” he yelled at the
trio.
Within the next three minutes Danny had changed his mind. “Fine night
for a run,” was his bland venture as he caught up with the three
strollers. “Only I’d rather know beforehand that I was going to take a
run. Macy is what I should call dangerous. He ought to be caged.”
“Neither Jerry nor Danny will ever grow up,” was Marjorie’s amused
remark as Hal returned to her side.
“I don’t think you’ve grown up much, Marjorie,” Hal burst forth with
sudden eager wistfulness. “You look just as you did the first time I
ever saw you; only you are even prettier than you were then.”
Hal’s stubborn restraint gave way before the uncontrollable impulse to
speak his mind to Marjorie. “You were coming out the gate of Sanford
High, and I wondered who you were,” Hal went on boyishly. “I described
you to Jerry afterward, and asked all about you. She didn’t know you
very well then. I made her promise and double promise that she’d never
tell you I quizzed her about you.”
“And she never did,” Marjorie gaily assured. “I never even suspected you
two of having had a secret understanding about just me. Jerry is a good
secret keeper. I’m glad college hasn’t made me staid and serious. I’ve
loved the good times I’ve had at Hamilton as much as I’ve loved the
work. Now I’m ready to put my whole heart into work there so as to try
to make Hamilton mean as much to other students as it has meant to me.”
Marjorie had purposely hurried away from Hal’s very personal admission.
He now brought her back to it with an earnest abruptness which raised a
brighter color in her face.
“I wish you’d stay in Sanford and make the old town seem as much to me
as it used to,” he said. “I have a standing grudge against Hamilton
College. Can’t help having one, even though you and Jerry do think it’s
the only place on the map.”
“It’s the only place on the map for us until our work is done, Hal,” she
defended. “Once I thought I couldn’t leave General and Captain to go
back to Hamilton next fall. I found I was hard-hearted enough to do even
that for the sake of my work there. I’m having a gorgeous time at the
beach! Still I’m almost impatient for next week to come and bring with
it my mid-summer trip to Hamilton. You can understand, I’m sure, Hal,
how I feel about the building of the dormitory.”
“Work can’t fill your life, Marjorie,” Hal answered with a tender,
unconscious deepening of tone. “See how happy Connie and Laurie are!
They _love_ each other. _That’s_ the real meaning of life. Not even
music could come between them and love. Could anything be more perfect
than their romance? I’ve wished always that it would be so with you and
me. I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time, but I——”
“I hate to complain of your sister, Macy, but it’s necessary.” Danny
Seabrooke bounced into the midst of Hal’s declaration of love.
“I’ll disown you as my brother if you listen to what he says,” Jerry
appeared at Danny’s elbow.
“Oh, go away off the beach, both of you!” Hal waved the contesting pair
away from him. He wished both Danny and Jerry anywhere but close at
hand.
“Shan’t go a step,” defied Jerry. “Never think, Hal Macy, that you can
chase me into the Atlantic Ocean. _You_ may walk with Dan-yell, I’ve had
enough of him. Go ahead and untie the Oriole. I’m going to monopolize
Marvelous Marjorie for a while.” Jerry tucked an arm in one of
Marjorie’s.
“Only for about five minutes,” stipulated Hal. He cast a half smiling,
half challenging glance at Marjorie. “I want to talk to her myself. Come
along, old Seabean,” he motioned Danny.
The two young men ran ahead to untie the motor boat belonging to Hal
which was tied up at the Cliff House pier. Marjorie drew a soft little
breath of relief. Hal’s significant rush of words had taken her
unawares. Until now she had never failed to steer him away from anything
approaching sentiment. Tonight, however, she had sensed a certain
determined quality in his voice which was not to be denied. Hal did not
intend to be kept from saying his say much longer.