“What is the news from the soph’s election, I wonder? Ronny Lynde looked
interestedly toward Hamilton Hall where the sophomore class had
collected in a deserted recitation room to elect their officers.
“Here comes Muriel. Maybe she has heard echoes of the tumult that
writhes within. What are _you_ doing in the sacred corridors of Hamilton
Hall?” Marjorie banteringly hailed. “You don’t belong there.” Marjorie
and Ronny were passing Hamilton Hall on their way from a recitation in
French Prose.
“Mayn’t a mouse peep into a castle?” demanded Muriel. “I happen to be
studying Greek, though I may not look it.”
“Greek,” Ronny meditatively repeated. “That might account for some of
your strange actions. Things inexplicable are often remarked as being
‘so much Greek.’ I must say——”
“Don’t say it,” pleaded Muriel. Let me talk. The sophs are making a
grand splatter and clatter at their meeting. It sounded almost as though
they were engaged in mortal combat.
“I’d love to linger here and get the first news,” Marjorie said with a
bright glance into the open doorway of Hamilton Hall. “It’s against P. G.
dignity, though. Besides Professor Leonard wishes to see me at
four-thirty in the gym. It’s four-twenty-five now.” She consulted her
wrist watch. “I’ll leave you two. Of course, if you should decide to
wait for the election returns, it wouldn’t be my fault,” she told the
two significantly.
“Such consideration for your friends,” Muriel called after her. Marjorie
made a derisive little gesture over one shoulder then quickened her step
so as not to keep Professor Leonard waiting.
She found him in his office, his desk littered with physical culture
programs which he was in process of making.
“So glad to see you, Miss Dean.” He rose and offered her a friendly
hand. “Sit down, and let us have one of our old-time inspiriting talks.
I was hoping you would come back to the campus. I supposed you would be
in Hamilton, at any rate. I wish you would tell me more about the new
dormitory. I had no opportunity to talk with you about it last June.”
Marjorie had intended to remain in the professor’s office not more than
a few moments. It was more nearly an hour before she rose to say good
afternoon. Professor Leonard had strongly urged her to serve again on
the sports committee. The energetic instructor had refused to entertain
her doubt that the students of the college might prefer the sports
committee should be seniors rather than post graduates.
“I can assure you of your eligibility to the committee,” he said
earnestly. “Yourself and two seniors, Miss Severn and Miss Moore, we
will say, will make my perfect sports committee. However, think the
matter over. I wish you to be satisfied. I know you are a very busy
young woman. Help me, if you can. I need your judgment and support.”
Marjorie reveled in the comforting inner assurance of work well done as
she left the gymnasium and hastened toward Wayland Hall. She had decided
before she reached the steps of the Hall, if Phil and Barbara wished
very much that she should accept the honor the Professor had offered
her, she would do so.
Glancing up at the chimes clock she saw a quarter to six staring her in
the face. “Election’s over long ago,” she said to herself. “I’ll have
just about ten minutes to drop in on Gussie before dinner.” “Oh, bother,”
was her second thought. “Gussie is probably out somewhere being rushed.
I’ll stop at her door, anyway.” She hurried into the hall and made a
running ascent of the stairs. She rapped repeatedly on Gussie’s door; at
first lightly, then with force. Still no one answered.
Going on to her own room she found the door half open and no Jerry in
sight. She flung off her hat and long coat and set off for Ronny’s room.
The murmur of voices behind the closed door informed her that there
someone was at home.
“Gadding again!” exclaimed Jerry as Marjorie walked into the room.
“I know you are, Jeremiah,” Marjorie retorted sweetly. “It’s surprising
in you to own to it.”
“I wasn’t speaking of myself. Walking diagonally across the hall from
one room to another isn’t gadding. But you—That’s another story.”
“What about the election?” Marjorie made a scornful face at Jerry and
turned to Ronny and Muriel. There was excitement in her question. She
felt the same anxiety for Gussie that she would have for one of her
chums in the same circumstances.
“Gentleman Gus was elected, but there was some sort of fuss,” Muriel
replied to the question. “We hung about the steps where we were when you
left us. A crowd of sophs came out. Miss Monroe was with them. She was
looking quite pleased with herself. She didn’t see me. I mean she
pretended she didn’t. The other sophs, there were nine or ten of them,
were peeved as could be. They were grumbling and muttering like a mob in
a house play.”
“Those sophs had undoubtedly backed Miss Monroe. We knew then she’d lost
without having to be told, Muriel was anxious to find out the details so
we went into Hamilton Hall to lie in wait for and pounce down upon
someone who knew what we didn’t,” supplemented Ronny.
“By then we’d lost all respect for ourselves as P. G.’s,” chuckled
Muriel. “We were getting curiouser and curiouser. We did a wary toddle
down the corridor toward the room the sophs were in. The door opened and
out came Jane Everest. I can’t recall when I’ve so much enjoyed meeting
anyone,” she declared waggishly. “Only Jane didn’t know what the fuss
was about. It was a hot one, she said between Gussie and some of the
sophs we’d seen coming out of the Hall. Only the chairman and the
election committee appeared to know what it was over.”
“I’m afraid I know what it was over,” Marjorie spoke with a kind of sad
soberness. “You remember what I told you, Jeremiah?”
“Yes. I’m afraid you knew too much, Bean; too much.” Jerry wagged her
head with the air of a wiseacre.
Marjorie had to laugh in spite of her perturbation. Ronny and Muriel
were eyeing her expectantly, listening for what she might say next.
“It is because of last year—” Marjorie broke off abruptly as a quick,
imperative knock sounded at the door.
Ronny went to the door and opened it. “Oh, Gussie!” she exclaimed. “Come
in.”
“No, thank you. I—I—want to see—just Marjorie—no one else.” Gussie’s
voice had a husky sound. Her eyelids were suspiciously pink.
“Why, Gussie!” Marjorie who had heard; was at the door with outstretched
hands. “What is it, dear?” she asked in a lower tone.
“I must talk with you. A lot of miserable things have happened. I was
elected. I don’t want to be president. I don’t know what to do.” Gussie
leaned her arm against a side of the open door, dropped her head upon it
and burst into tears.
Next moment Marjorie had gently drawn the weeping sophomore inside the
room and closed the door. “Poor old Gus,” she soothed, “wrapping her
arms about Augusta. Go ahead and cry as much as you please. You’ll feel
better afterward.”
The three other girls now joined Marjorie in her earnest effort to
comfort Augusta. In place of the breezy, self-reliant Gussie they had
been used to meeting had now appeared this woe-begone, tear-drenched
stranger.
“Buck up, Gentleman Gus,” encouraged Jerry, giving the weeper a friendly
slap between the shoulders.
The slangy consolation and the slap had a potent effect on Gussie. She
stopped crying with a gulping sigh and even managed to coax a wavering,
quivery smile to her lips.
“Ah, aha! That’s better.” Jerry made capital of the smile. “Have a
chair, and tell us your troubles. If you see a chair here you fancy,
grab it before anyone else has a chance at it. This isn’t my room but I
run it just the same. I run everything I can, and sometimes I get the
run.”
Gussie’s smile grew at Jerry’s nonsense. “No, I won’t sit down. I can’t
stay. I ran away from the girls. I was looking for Marjorie.” She
stopped, looking distressed. “I’ll tell you about the election,” she
slowly continued. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone but Marjorie, but I’d
like you to know.” Her gaze swept the trio of girls. Apparently
satisfied with what she saw, she said:
“There were three nominations for president—Miss Monroe, Evelyn Burtis
and myself. The girls who were rooting for Miss Monroe were the ones who
said I reported Ida Weir and Alma Hurst for hazing Flossie and me last
year. You know I did not report Miss Weir and Miss Hurst. It was Miss
Walbert who did that. I didn’t know any such hateful thing had been said
about me until Flossie told me after the election. If I had known it
beforehand I wouldn’t have accepted a nomination. Flossie knew it, and
didn’t tell me.”
“Finally the voting began. I won by a third majority.” Gussie could not
keep a note of pride out of her voice. “Miss Monroe had more votes than
Miss Burtis. My party began cheering me. Before they had stopped a soph
who has a crush on Miss Monroe stood up and began fussing with the
chairman. She said she had a perfect right to protest against the
election; that the chairman had no business to accept my nomination for
president when she had been informed beforehand by letter of my true
character. She said that I was not fit to be the president of my class;
that I was not truthful or honorable; that I had reported two worthy
students for hazing who were entirely innocent of such a charge. Then
she demanded that the ballot should be cast all over again with my name
left out.
“The chairman said she had received the letter against me which the soph
had written and had showed it to the other members of the committee. I
wish you might have seen how scornful she looked. They had all agreed to
ignore it as unworthy of attention.”
“That chairman is a peach,” warmly praised Jerry. “Who is she? I shall
lunch her at Baretti’s tomorrow. See if I don’t.”
“She is Miss Hopkins, and she is splendid.” Gussie drew a long breath.
“The soph who made all the fuss is Miss Walker. She and a pal of hers,
Miss Johnson, were chummy with Alma Hurst and Ida Weir.”
“It isn’t right that such untruthful gossip should be spread about you,
Gussie,” was Marjorie’s indignant cry. “The best way to down it is to
show the sophs what a fine president you can be. I know you will.”
“I—I said I would resign,” Gussie confessed. “Miss Hopkins said she
didn’t blame me. She gave me a queer look when she said it as though she
wished I wouldn’t. My party hadn’t heard much of the talk between Miss
Walker and Miss Hopkins for Miss Walker was sitting on a front seat.
They only knew it was some kind of kick about me. They began to cheer me
and the other sophs began to hiss. My party raked them down. I was
sitting near the front, too, with Floss and Calista. All of a sudden
Miss Hopkins walked up to me and said: ‘Please don’t resign, Miss
Forbes. The committee believe in you.’ I know you’ll stand by us. I
couldn’t resign after that.” Gussie avowed with rueful emphasis.
“Your a real gentleman of the old school,” Ronny approved. “Allow me to
escort you to a blow-out at Baretti’s. There is no time like the
present. I’m going to gather in the Bertramites. Muriel, go gather in
Leila and Vera. Tear them from the dining room table, if necessary.”
“Slave, do my bidding,” mocked Muriel as she bounced obediently from the
room.
Veronica skipped lightly after her. She found the four Bertramites in
Gussie’s room, solemnly wondering where poor old Gus had hidden herself.
Two minutes’ explanation and the four girls were crossing the hall to
Ronny’s room, a hurrying quartette.
Muriel luckily caught Leila and Vera just outside the dining room.
“I know of no one more accommodating than myself, except Midget,” was
Leila’s characteristic acceptance of the invitation. “Are we not noble
to wait another hour for dinner when we are starving?”
“Noble isn’t the word,” Muriel returned effusively.
“You’re too effusive to be sincere,” was Vera’s blunt opinion as the
three started upstairs together.
Marjorie also had a good-will errand of her own to go on. Down stairs
she quietly flitted and to the telephone. When she had finished a
low-toned conversation with Robin Page at the other end of the line she
hung up the receiver, clapped her hands childishly and ran upstairs, a
demure little smile playing upon her lips.
Following Augusta Forbes’ bitter cup of the afternoon the “blow-out”
given in her honor by P. G.’s at Baretti’s was an unexpected and
effectual balm to her wounded spirit. It was a very jolly dinner, made
thus by the handful of democratic girls who had “been through the Wars
of the Campus,” as Jerry announced in proposing a toast to the new
sophomore president. Nor had their prompt upholding of Augusta been
without effect on the several groups of girls who were also dining at
the restaurant. At the Colonial the sophomore ringleaders in the ignoble
attempt to down Gussie were dining Doris Monroe and hotly discussing
ways and means by which their faction might gain the upper hand in
sophomore affairs despite the loss of the presidency on the part of
their choice.
Doris, in an exquisite frock of orchid tissue with a huge bunch of real
pinky-lavender orchids trailing across one bare shoulder looked more
like a fairy-tale princess than ever. Some of the sophs had even begun
to call her the Princess. Nor could she know that Marjorie’s flattering
fancy of her, repeated to one of the Wayland Hall freshman by way of
admiring Doris’s undeniable beauty, was the source of the pleasing
title. What Doris did know was that she had begun to crave popularity.
She was having her first taste of the sweeping impetuous admiration of
the American college girl. Under an air of sweetly-smiling but still
indifferent amiability Doris was reaching greedily out for popularity.
It would not be her fault if she should not gain it.
The crowning bliss of having faithful friends came to Gussie that night
after she and her genial adherents had returned to Wayland Hall and she
was in her room telling the details of the afternoon’s fray to her
curious chums. Under her window, sudden and sweet, the stately Hymn to
Hamilton rose, more beautiful than ever by reason of the utter harmony
of musical instruments and voices.
With one accord the five girls rushed to the two windows and opened
them. Not one word did they speak, simply leaned across the sill and
listened. When the hymn ended they applauded softly. The singers in the
darkness below followed the hymn with one of Nevin’s songs without
words, vocalizing it perfectly. Then came “Appear Love At Thy Window,”
and last, “Good Night: God Guard You.”
As the final line of the tender old song ended Gussie leaned far out the
window and said in quiet, purposeful tones: “Thank you, everyone. You
can’t know how much you’ve done for me. I’ll try harder than ever to
live up to my Alma Mater.”
From other windows on that side of the house girls were leaning, hurried
to them by the harmonic sounds. In the room occupied by Muriel and the
“Ice Queen” Doris Monroe had just entered. She was occupied in placing
the bunch of orchids in water when the music began.
“What is it?” she languidly inquired as Muriel raced to a window and
raised it.
“Serenade party. They are serenading Miss Forbes.” Muriel’s eyes danced
as she gave the information.
“How peculiar!” drawled Doris. A jealous light had sprung into her
changeable eyes.
“Not half so peculiar as the way some of the sophs behaved this
afternoon.” Muriel was constrained to retort over one shoulder as she
dropped to her knees before the window.