Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу  Marjorie Dean Macy

автор Josephine Chase

Surrounded by a love knot of friends, Marjorie opened package after package.

(Page 161)              (Marjorie Dean Macy)

MARJORIE DEAN
MACY

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.

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

MARJORIE DEAN MACY

Copyright, 1926

By A. L. BURT COMPANY

MARJORIE DEAN MACY

Made in “U. S. A.”

MARJORIE DEAN MACY

CHAPTER I.
 
MANAÑA

“Here I am—all booted and spurred and ready to ride,” Marjorie Dean called out gaily to Veronica Lynne as Ronny entered the cool spacious patio of Lucero de la Manaña, the Lynnes’ beautiful ranch home in southern California.

Marjorie was a feast for beauty-loving eyes as she sat on the wide stone edge of the silver-spraying fountain with its musical murmur of water splashing into a white marble basin. The mannish cut of her gray knickered riding clothes merely made her look more than ever like a little girl. From under her little round gray hat with its bit of irridescent color her bright brown curls showed in a soft fluff. She sat smiling at Ronny, a sleeve of her riding coat pushed back from one rounded arm, one hand trailing idly in the clear water of the basin.

“You sound like Paul Revere. At least, that is what he said, supposedly, on the night of his famous ride. You look like Leila Harper’s friend, Beauty, even in riding togs.” Ronny came over to Marjorie, smiling.

“I only remember Leila Harper.” Marjorie glanced up teasingly.

“You are altogether too forgetful,” Ronny lightly reproved.

She paused, looking amusedly down at her pretty chum. She was wearing a white linen, knickered riding suit which was vastly becoming. Her wide gray eyes gave out a happy light that her heart switched on every time her gaze came to rest upon Marjorie.

Since first she had known Marjorie Dean, back in their senior high school days at Sanford, she had cherished a pet dream. That dream had come true six weeks previous when Marjorie, her father and mother had arrived from the East to make Ronny a long deferred visit. To range the great ranch, pony-back, with Marjorie riding beside her, ever a gracious, inspiriting comrade, was Ronny’s highest desire toward happiness.

“How long have you been waiting for me, Miss Paul Revere?” she playfully questioned. “Why didn’t you come to Ronny’s room and hang around? Why so unsociable?” Ronny drew down her face into an aggrieved expression which her dancing eyes contradicted. “I’ve known you to be much more cordial at old Wayland Hall.”

“Oh, I’ve only been here about three minutes. I’m miles more sociable than I was at Wayland Hall,” laughed Marjorie. “I thought you’d be ready and ahead of me. When I found you weren’t, I couldn’t resist stopping to dabble my hand in the water. I love the patio, Ronny, and adore the fountain. If I lived here three months longer I should be so steeped in the beauty of Manaña that I’d forget the East—maybe.” Her “maybe” was stronger than her light prediction.

“The magic spell of Manaña is upon you,” Ronny confidently asserted. “There is a mystical, romantic beauty about Manaña. I have searched for it over and over again in the East, but have never found it. It seems to me our Manaña is Nature’s own ideal of grandeur and beauty. I think the Spanish influence in the house and about the ranch heightens its claim to the romantic. Hamilton Arms has a certain stateliness of beauty, all its own. But has it anything more romantically beautiful than this patio?”

“It’s true as you live, Ronny Lynne,” agreed Marjorie gaily.

“You couldn’t love the patio better than I do.” Ronny cast a fond glance about the great square-covered court with its central crystal-spraying fountain and its ancient stone floor, gay with rugs and colorful Navajo blankets. The few inviting lounging chairs, the reading stand piled with current magazines, the quaint leather-covered Spanish couch, long and narrow, and heaped with gorgeous-hued silken cushions seemed only to accentuate the primitive charm of the old-time inclosure. Above it a railed-in Spanish balcony extended around the four sides. It was bright with flowering plants and further beautified by the masses of trailing vines which clambered over the old-time mahogany railing.

“I know it.” Marjorie gave a quick nod. “I’d not wish to love it as much as Hamilton Arms. I never thought I could care more for the Arms than dear Castle Dean. But I do. My whole heart is bound up in it, and Hamilton. I hope that I—that—we—will—” Marjorie stopped, her color deepening. “I hope Hal and I will live at Hamilton some day.” She continued in shy haste to finish what she had begun to say when girlish embarrassment had overtaken her.

“I believe Hamilton to be the one place for you and Hal to live,” Ronny made hearty response. “It would be splendid if General and Captain should decide to live in Hamilton Estates, too. ‘Where the treasure is, there shall the heart be also,’ you know. You are General’s and Captain’s treasure, and Hamilton is your treasure, so why shouldn’t you all get together and be happy? None of you have really anything special to bind you to Sanford. That is, not as you have at Hamilton.” Ronny smiled very tenderly at Marjorie’s glowing face.

“It’s different with me,” Ronny continued. “My treasure is Father. So Manaña means most of any place on earth to me. I love Hamilton devotedly. Remember, there are plenty of Travelers to help complete the dormitory, but only one Traveler to comfort a lonely man. Father has considered me above himself always. Now I must begin to consider him.”

Marjorie sprang up from her seat upon the fountain’s stone edge. “It’s odd to me still, Ronny—being engaged to be married to Hal,” she confessed as she shyly busied herself with the drying of her wet hand with her handkerchief.

Ronny nodded sympathetically. “I always believed it would happen some day,” she said. “You can’t help but feel strange about it, though. You’ve hardly seen him since college closed.”

“But I’m going to see him soon.” The note of unmistakable happiness in Marjorie’s reply was in itself convincing of the true state of the little Lieutenant’s heart.

The two friends had now passed through the arched stone doorway of the patio and stepped out upon the lawn. They crossed it to the ancient brick drive and followed the drive toward a point near the heavy iron entrance gates, where a young Mexican boy stood holding the bridles of two horses. The girls were going for a ride before sunset.

“Bueno; muy bueno, Ramon. Muchas gracias (Good; very good, Ramon. Thank you very much),” Ronny brightly smiled her further thanks at the pleased groom.

Ramon showed white teeth, acknowledging her thanks in Spanish. Due to her love of action Marjorie had learned to ride with a readiness which delighted and amazed Ronny. She had picked for Marjorie a handsome white pony which she had fancifully named Dawn. Pony and rider had quickly become fast friends. Ronny’s own pet mount, Lightning, a soft black thoroughbred that deserved his name, was the admiration and the despair of the majority of the cowboys on the ranch. Few besides Ronny and Mr. Lynne had been able to stay long upon his back. He obeyed Ronny because he loved her.

“Your going home will leave a horrible blank space at my hearthstone,” Ronny regretfully told Marjorie as they rode their ponies slowly through the opened gates and out onto a broad trail which descended gradually in an easterly direction.

“I wish you could be in two places at once,” Marjorie returned with a soft little sigh. “I hate to leave you, Ronny. What are we going to do without you on the campus? What are Page and Dean without their greatest show feature? Think of all you’ve done as a Traveler for the good of Hamilton. I haven’t dared write Miss Susanna and the girls that you weren’t coming back. Does your father know yet what good fortune’s in store for him?”

“No; I’ve not broached the subject to him yet. Before long he will probably ask me when I think of going East. Then I shall say ‘Not at all,’ and stick to it.”

“You’ll simply have to come East to—to—” She paused, her eyes meeting Ronny’s with a significantly happy light.

“Oh, of course, then,” Ronny smilingly emphasized.

“You are to be one of my bridesmaids, Ronny,” Marjorie decreed. “I’ve been thinking quite a lot about my wedding. I have an idea that it will be different from most weddings, I’d like to have gathered around me that day the girls I’ve known and loved best. I’m going to try to find a place for them all in my bridal procession. I’ve not settled upon a single thing yet, but I have just one inspiration that I hope I can carry out.”

“When is it to be, Marjorie?” Ronny questioned with the lighting of her fair face which Marjorie loved to see.

“I don’t quite know yet. It will all depend on when the dormitory is finished. I—I haven’t made any plans for it except I’ve thought to myself about the kind of wedding I’d like to have. I’ve said more to you than I have even to Captain,” Marjorie declared with a shy laugh.

“I am highly honored, Marvelous Manager.” Ronny leaned to the right in her saddle with a respectful bow. “Having marvelously managed everything and everybody for a period of years on the campus, may we not expect you to manage your own wedding with eclat?”

“Don’t expect too much,” Marjorie warned laughingly.

As they talked the ponies had been impatiently enduring the slow walk to which their riders, absorbed in confidences, had put them. The trail was broad and smooth; wide enough for two ponies to run on, side by side. It dipped gradually down into a green valley of oak, larch and aspen trees. There the trail narrowed to a bridle path, winding in and out among wooded growths, and overhanging steep ravines. After half a mile it emerged from shadowed woods into the sunshine of the open country, growing wider again.

“There he is!” Ronny had been keeping up a bright look-out ahead. Her white-clad arm began a vigorous signaling to a horseman who had reined in near a large rock some distance ahead of them. He was sitting on a big bay horse, waiting for the riders to come up.

Every day, since Marjorie had learned to ride the two girls had gone pony-back at sunset to meet Mr. Lynne on his return from the daily supervision of the planting of a peach orchard of choice variety.

“I’ll race you,” Ronny challenged. She started her horse, Lightning, with a quick pat of her hand on his silky neck. He shot forward like a veritable streak of lightning, glad of a chance to run.

CHAPTER II.
 
FOND REALITY

Dawn was only a second or two behind him. The pair of mettlesome ponies fled along the trail toward the waiting horseman, their riders uttering buoyant little cries of encouragement and laughter. It was the usual race, and Ronny always won. Dawn could not quite keep up with Lightning.

“Buenos dias, señor (how are you, sir)?” Ronny greeted cheerily as she reined in near her father’s horse. “Stand and deliver. What’s in that fat, interesting package at your saddle bow? I can guess. You’ve been to Teresa’s.”

“Who is Teresa?” Mr. Lynne inquired with guileless interest.

“Teresa is a most amiable Spanish donna who is famed for the deliciousness of her candied fruits, such as you have in two tin boxes wrapped in one package,” Ronny triumphantly informed. “Get down from your horse, Señor Lynne, and hand over the spoils to us. If you’re good, we may ask you to sit beside us on that nice flat rock over there and attend a picnic.”

“You win. Come and get it.” Mr. Lynne had sprung from his horse and was waving the large package temptingly at Ronny. Marjorie sat on her pony, watching the devoted pair with an affectionate smile. She was thinking that Mr. Lynne was almost as dear and full of fun as General. But not quite, she made loyal reservation.

Ronny had left Lightning’s back in a twinkling and was making energetic grabs at the package her father was swaying back and forth just out of her reach.

“You’re in this, Lightning. Candy, old dear. Think of that.” The pony sent up an approving whinny. Dawn also began to neigh vigorously. “Can’t fool you two beauties. You know what’s in those boxes as well as I.”

Ronny managed to secure the package. She had the wrapper off of it in a flash, revealing two square tin boxes such as she was famed for having provided at the Travelers’ campus spreads. She handed one of the tin boxes to Marjorie and sat down on the flat rock with the other on her lap to explore its contents.

“Um-m. Cherries, apricots and plums!” she exclaimed. “Two hours yet till dinner. Sit down, Señor Lynne and Señorita Dean. You’re invited to a feast.”

“Teresa sends you her best wishes and says she will have plenty of candied fruit packed for you by the time you are ready to go East to Hamilton.” Teresa was the wife of Mr. Lynne’s oldest foreman and was noted for her skill in candying fruit.

“Teresa doesn’t know yet that I’m not going East again this fall.” Ronny turned calm gray eyes upon her father as she bit into a luscious cherry.

“I’m afraid you will have to go,” Mr. Lynne said with apparent regretful seriousness. He was a big fair giant of a man with penetrating blue eyes, a strong square chin and thick fair hair brushed high off his broad forehead. His facial expression was kindly, yet suggested great will-power.

“I am going to Mexico on a prospecting trip for silver. I promised some friends of mine long ago that I would join their expedition. I shall be gone all winter. I can’t take you with me, and I don’t wish you to be alone at Manaña. It’s lucky I can pack you off to Hamilton again. Such a strain off my mind,” he ended teasingly.

“You are a sham,” Ronny set the box of cherries on the ground. Her arms went round her father’s neck. She placed a playful hand to his lips. “Not another word. You know you only think I want to go East again. So you have joined——”

“Well, don’t you?” her father tenderly demanded.

“Not more than to stay here with you,” she answered honestly.

“But how can you stay here with me when I shan’t be here? You aren’t going to say I can’t go to Mexico, are you?” he put on an expression of blank disappointment.

“Can you say on your word of honor that you aren’t going away on my account?” Ronny countered severely.

“You haven’t answered my questions yet,” came the laughing evasion. “Besides you took me so by surprise that I forgot I had two letters for Marjorie.”

Mr. Lynne reached into a pocket of his tweed riding coat and drew forth two envelopes. One was square and pale gray. The other was square and white. Sight of it sent two happy color signals flying to Marjorie’s cheeks. Hal’s familiar hand on the white square made her heart beat faster. Quickly she laid the gray envelope over it, striving to keep her lovely face from indexing her love for Hal. She bent purposely wrinkled brows over the gray envelope. It bore a San Francisco postmark. The writing on it seemed oddly familiar, yet she could not place it. So far as she knew she had neither acquaintances nor friends in San Francisco. She courteously tucked both letters into a coat pocket and again turned her attention to the merry little tilt still going on between Ronny and her father.

“I’ll confess, if you will,” Mr. Lynne was saying. “But you first.”

“Confess what?” Ronny put on a non-comprehending air.

“Can you truthfully say that you’d rather stay at home this year than go back to Hamilton and finish your part of the work of building the dormitory?” There was an undercurrent of seriousness in the light tone of the question.

“When you put matters that way, no. You’re awfully mean.” Ronny laughed half vexedly. “Now it’s my turn. Hadn’t your friends forgotten all about that silver expedition until you reminded them of it? Why need you go prospecting when you are not a prospector?”

“I really don’t know much about my friends’ memories. I am obliged to become a prospector in order to make you go back to Hamilton. It’s the only way. Now, isn’t it?”

“I can’t think of any other,” Ronny admitted. “It’s dear in you.” There was a tiny quaver in her clear enunciation.

“Not a bit of it. It’s necessary for you to return to Hamilton to finish your part of the dormitory enterprise,” came her father’s crisp decision. “Never undertake a thing unless you are prepared to finish it, Little Comrade.” It was her father’s pet name for Ronny. “What do you say, Marjorie?” he turned to the radiant-faced Lieutenant.

“I ought to be sympathizing with you because you won’t see Ronny this winter. But if you only knew how we need her on the campus. She is Page and Dean’s greatest show feature, not to mention what she is to the Travelers and the dormitory enterprise. It’s the best news I could possibly hear,” Marjorie said with happy enthusiasm.

Seated on the flat rock and enjoying Teresa’s delicious candied fruit an hour winged away before the trio ended their absorbed confab and rose to take the trail to Manaña. The sun was fast dropping in the West, a huge flaming ball against the pale tints of the evening sky.

Mounted again upon Dawn’s back Marjorie gazed dreamily across the broad acres of Manaña. The great ranch lay in waves of undulating green forest and meadow, rising in the east to distant purple-tipped heights. She was experiencing an odd sense of unreality in the scene. Was it really, she, Marjorie Dean, who looked down from a height upon a magnificent verdant summer world so far removed from the one she had ever known. To her, Lucero de la Manaña was indeed the star of the morning—but of a magic realm.

Reality? Her hand sought the pocket of her riding coat in which reposed Hal’s letter. She had told Ronny that it seemed strange to her to be betrothed to Hal. Her fingers closed around the envelope that held his letter with the conviction that, after all, Hal was the beloved reality; Manaña was a beautiful illusion.

She knew in her glad heart that she had not dreamed of a spring night of magic and moonshine when she had walked with Hal in the sweet fragrance of Spring, aflower, and felt the tender clasp of his arms and the touch of his lips on her own. She had not dreamed that she had promised him her future when her work should have been done. It was all true.

CHAPTER III.
 
THE ROAD TO THE HEART’S DESIRE

Marjorie rode back to the ranch house in a kind of tender daze. She heard Ronny’s and Mr. Lynne’s voices addressing her, and her own voice answering them as far-off sounds. For one who had formerly never understood love she could not but marvel at the great change within herself. She was now experiencing the stillness of happiness of which Constance had tried to tell her when she had confided to Marjorie the news of her engagement to Lawrence Armitage. Constance had said then she hoped Marjorie would some day fall in love with Hal. Marjorie smiled as she recalled the half displeased reply she had made. How hard-hearted she had been. She was remorseful now. Loving Hal with all the strength of her fine nature she could not forgive herself for having caused him so much of lover’s pain.

Alone in her high-ceilinged, luxurious sleeping room at the ranch house she dropped hastily into a wicker arm chair and drew the cherished letter from her pocket. Her smile was a thing of tender beauty as she opened the envelope and extracted two closely written sheets of thick gray paper. Hal’s letters to Marjorie had usually been brief affairs until after the eventful spring evening when she had turned life from drab to rose for him. Love had given his pen new impetus. With starry eyes and heightened color Marjorie read his fond salutation:

“Dearest:

“Your latest letter told me the news I have been waiting anxiously for. You are coming home soon. So glad you and General and Captain expect to be at Severn Beach by the twelfth of September. Connie and Laurie arrived here from New York last week. You must have heard from Connie by now. I am planning a moonlight stroll on the beach and a sail in the Oriole for the same old six of us who went strolling and sailing on a certain white moonlight night last summer; the unhappiest I have ever known. So I am sure that our next stroll together in the moonlight will be the happiest.

“It is such a long way to Manaña. I have to remind myself often that the violet girl who made me a wonderful promise one night at Hamilton Arms was real, and not a dream. I shall not be sure of my good fortune until we meet again. You went away from me to Ronny’s so soon after that enchanted night. I had not had time to realize my great happiness. How came you to love me, I am always wondering, when there seemed no hope? You will tell me how it came to pass. Won’t you, sweetheart?

“There is so much I should like to say to you. I cannot write it. Whenever I try to write you my whole thought is that I love you and hope soon to see you.”

Marjorie read on, the starriness on her brown eyes softening to wistful tenderness. The depth of Hal’s love for her filled her with a strange tender humility. She could hardly believe herself worthy of such devotion.

She sat immersed in her love dream until the tinkling chime of the French clock on the mantel shattered it.

“Seven,” she counted in consternation, sentiment fading to dismay. “And I’ve not started to change my riding togs yet. I’ll surely have to hurry.”

Half past seven was the dinner hour at Manaña. Marjorie dropped a light kiss upon Hal’s letter and hurriedly deposited it in a drawer of the dressing table. She plumped down on a cushioned stool and began a quick removing of her riding boots. By twenty minutes after seven she was deftly hooking her slim form into a sleeveless white faille frock, charmingly embroidered with little clusters of rosy double daisies. It had been a present to her from Leila who was abroad with Vera, and had come from “L’harmonie” the most exclusive shop in Paris. Marjorie, full of devotion toward Hal, had picked out the gown to wear down to dinner as somehow expressing her best in her happiness.

“Five minutes to spare.” She closed the last snap with satisfaction. “I could do my hair a little smoother, but it’s pretty fair, Bean, pretty fair.” She said this last aloud, laughing a little. It brought pleasant memories of Jerry Macy.

She reopened the drawer, holding Hal’s letter with intent to read it again. Then she remembered the other letter in the pocket of her riding coat and went smiling into the small adjoining dressing room for it. She was chipping open an end of its envelope when Ronny knocked on the door.

“Come,” Marjorie called.

Ronny opened the door and entered, her individually charming self in a crystal-beaded white frock of chiffon.

“I forgot all about this letter.” Marjorie held up the square envelope. “I—you see—the other was from Hal, and——”

“I understand perfectly.” Mischief gleamed in Ronny’s gray eyes. The two girls laughed. “Go ahead and read the one Hal didn’t write. I give you permission. Three minutes yet until the dinner ring.”

“Thank you, kind Ronny.” Marjorie made Ronny a gay little obeisance. “I haven’t the least idea who it’s from.” Marjorie now had the letter out of the envelope and was searching it for the signature. She found it, stared at it in surprise, then cried: “This letter is from Leslie Cairns. Pardon me while I read it.” A moment or two and she dropped into a chair, glancing up at Ronny rather helplessly.

“Why, she has written the last thing I’d expect her to write!” she exclaimed wonderingly.

“Leslie Cairns always was a surprising person,” Ronny remarked with good-humored satire. “Only her surprises were generally more startling than agreeable.”

“I am sure she wouldn’t mind if I read you her letter. Wen Lo hasn’t rung the bell yet. We still have a minute.” Marjorie commenced in a brisk tone:

“Dear Miss Dean:

“My father and I lunched at the Arms with Miss Hamilton several weeks ago and from her learned that you were visiting Miss Lynne in California, at Lucero de la Manaña.

“We came West over a week ago on a flying business trip. My father is trying to initiate me into the mysteries of financiering. I find them decidedly intricate. We are now in San Francisco, and staying at the Albemarle. Our telephone number is Oakland 842. If you should come to San Francisco in the near future will you not look me up?

“My real reason for writing, however, is this. We shall go East before long in my father’s private car, the Speedwell. Can your father and mother and you not arrange to be our guests on the eastern journey? We shall be glad to suit our time for going East to your own. It would be a great pleasure for my father and me to meet your father and mother, and entertain them and you. We are both ambitious to serve the interests of Hamilton. We feel, that, aside from the pleasure of yours and your parents’ company, you will be able to teach us the way to be of use to Hamilton College. We shall be in the neighborhood of the Lynne ranch next Tuesday and will stop for a few moments to see you. Think the matter over and be prepared to say ‘yes.’

“Cordially yours,

      “Leslie A. Cairns.”

“And Leslie Cairns wrote that letter!” Ronny made a gesture of incredulity. “It seems hard to believe she isn’t Jeremiah’s Hob-goblin any longer.”

“It seemed queer to me for a little while last June to think of her as a friend,” Marjorie confessed. “That feeling soon died out of my mind. After she took the stand she did about the Leila Harper Playhouse I had a great deal of admiration for her. I knew she was truly sincere in her resolve to be different.”

Marjorie referred to a certain decision at which Leslie had arrived after she had visited Hamilton Arms in company with her father one day during the previous spring. It was then Leslie had outlined to Marjorie her generous proposal to erect a theatre on the site of her garage “flivver” which she wished to name “The Leila Harper Playhouse.” The theatre was to be owned and controlled by Leila with only the one stipulation that whatever performances might be given in it should be for the benefit of the Brooke Hamilton Dormitory.

Marjorie had then urged Leslie to permit her name to be given as the donor of the theatre when it should be completed the following spring. Leslie had confided to Marjorie her great desire that her father should be named as the giver of the theatre. Her own unworthy record at Hamilton College forbade her that pleasure. She had somberly argued that mention of either her name or her father’s as the giver of the theatre would serve only to recall her misdeeds and expulsion from Hamilton to faculty and students alike. She had already disappointed her father too greatly, she told Marjorie, without placing either him or herself in line for further criticism.

“I’m going to tell you something, Ronny. Leslie gave me permission last spring to use my own discretion in regard to keeping it a secret. Miss Susanna and Jerry know. So does Robin. I’d rather the other girls shouldn’t for awhile. You see it’s something wonderful for Leila. We wish it to be a great surprise. She’s so quick to divine things. I’m awfully afraid she may find it out unless I am very careful.” Marjorie put Ronny in possession of Leslie’s pet plan.

“There ought to be some way, Ronny, to manage things so that Leslie or her father—she’d rather it would be he—might be named as the giver of the Leila Harper Playhouse at the dedication and presentation.” Marjorie laid Leslie’s letter on the willow magazine stand with a little sigh.

“There will be.” Ronny made the assertion with positiveness. “What a splendid thing for Leslie Cairns to wish to do! The way will open for her. You’ll see. She is trying earnestly to think of everyone but herself. And that is truly the only sure road to the heart’s desire.”

CHAPTER IV.
 
A TWILIGHT SERENADE

After dinner that night in the beautiful summer dining room which opened upon a broad side veranda, tropically picturesque with palms and oleanders, Marjorie and Ronny repaired to their favorite haunt. It was a second-story balcony which overlooked a rose garden. There Wen Lo, the enigmatic-faced Chinese butler, long in the service of the Lynnes, brought them their dessert of ices and sweets and coffee. Mr. Lynne had declined dessert and gone into the library to enjoy an after-dinner cigar and a new book on fruit culture which had been written by his Chinese friend and ranch neighbor, Sieguf Tah.

“You must be feeling both glad and sorry about going back to Hamilton, Ronny,” Marjorie said presently drawing in a deep breath of the fragrant, rose-scented air. “Glad to be at Hamilton, and with us; sorry to leave Manaña. It’s so beautiful at all times. One day I think I love the early mornings best. Next day, it’s the sunset that seems most beautiful. Now the twilight’s coming on, and the roses are so sweet. Oh-h-h!”

A sturdy trellised vine, odorous with scented clusters of pinkish-yellow roses clambered up and over the balcony. Marjorie bent and buried her face in the clustered riot of bloom.

“You’ve learned, even in this short time, to love Manaña in the way I love it,” Ronny said softly.

A pleasant silence ensued between the two friends, Ronny, gazing absently into the approaching twilight, seemed lost in reverie. Her finely-chiseled profile turned toward Marjorie gave her the look of a young Greek goddess, dispassionately viewing a world of her own ruling.

As the twilight merged into dusk and the first stars of evening lit their twinkling lamps, from underneath the balcony the musical beat of a guitar rose in rhythmic measure. Came a characteristic Spanish prelude, then an old Mexican love song floated out upon the rose-scented dusk, sung by a trio of golden-voiced Mexican boys.

“La serenata (the serenade),” Ronny murmured, “How dear in Father. He has asked Teresa’s sons to serenade us. They are singing a very old Mexican song called, ‘Mi novia.’ That means ‘my sweetheart.’”

Ronny became silent again with this brief explanation. The dulcet, mellow voices of the Mexican boys swelled enchantingly upon the stillness of the evening. Marjorie was sure she had never before listened to anything more tenderly romantic than the plaintive rise and fall of the old song. More than once she had heard from Ronny of the fine singing voices which were the natural heritage of the Spanish Mexicans.

The singers followed their tuneful offering with another old Spanish ballad which Ronny told Marjorie was called “The Love Tears.”

“Cuando de tu lado ausente,

Triste muy triste es mi vida!”

rose the high sweet tenor of Ricardo, Teresa’s oldest son.

“When thou art absent from my side,

Sad, how sad, is my life!”

Ricardo was eighteen and still heart-whole yet the Latin inheritance of heartbreak was in his voice. All the sadness of an unrequited love, which he had certainly never yet experienced, rang in his impassioned singing. Nor were the voices of his younger brothers scarcely less emotional. The wistful yearning golden notes were no more than the heritage of romance and sentiment so peculiarly Spanish.

When the song was done Ronny leaned over the balcony and called softly down to them in Spanish: “Hermosa (beautiful). Que se repetia (please sing again). Muy bien venido, amigos. Nos alegramos mucho de que nos honre con su compania. (Welcome, friends. We are glad of the honor of your company.)”

The serenaders had been standing well under the overhanging balcony. Now they stepped out from its shadow a little, three dark outlines in the paler dusk.

“Muchas gracias, Señorita Veronica (thank you, Miss Veronica).” came the full-toned voice of Ricardo in pleased return. He went on to say in English. “Señor Lynne, your father, has asked us to give you the serenade on our way to the fiesta this evening which is to be at Pedro’s house in honor of his birthday. We are pleased to sing for you and the señorita from the East. Now we will sing for you your favorite song, ‘Pregunte las estrelles.’ Then we must hurry or be late to sing the birthday song for Pedro.”

“Muchas gracias, Ricardo. Señorita Dean and I love your songs. Presently we shall walk over to Pedro’s casa (house) to look in upon the fiesta. We have been invited by Annunciata, his wife. Tomorrow evening I wish you to bring Donna Teresa with your brothers to a fiesta here. The mother and father of Señorita Dean will then be there. They will wish to hear you sing.”

Followed a quick flow of appreciative Spanish, then a pair of musicianly hands picked out a ravishing little prelude on the guitar. Again the three in the soft darkness below took up the heart-stirring, painful sweetness of one of the old-time Spanish cantares (songs).

“Perhaps the stars in Heaven

Know this night how much I love:”

Marjorie had learned a few Spanish words since she had come to Manaña. She could not understand those of the song. Nevertheless she understood its import. Ronny had translated the title for her. She was now lost in happy wonderment as to whether the stars in Heaven could possibly know how truly she loved Hal.

With the ending of the song she called down pleasantly to the three young men. “Thank you for your beautiful singing. I think ‘The Stars’ is the sweetest song you sang.”

“We are happy to have pleased you, hermosa (beautiful) señorita. It is the song we also like best.” Ricardo added something daringly respectful to Ronny in Spanish. She laughingly translated his speech as the three dark figures strode away across the lawn. “Ricardo says that you are the most beautiful young lady he has ever seen.”

“Oh, bother.” Marjorie’s tone was half vexed. “I wish I had a pug nose and freckles. No. I’m glad I haven’t them.” She turned the subject abruptly with: “I should not have understood the beauty of those songs last year as I do now. Love has opened a new, wonderful world to me.”

“And this is hard-hearted Marjorie Dean to whom I’m listening,” Ronny said in a tone of light incredulity. Candidly she added: “I know how you feel about love. I feel so about it now. I see nothing deeper in Ricardo’s songs than beauty of voice and unconscious expression. Teresa says Ricardo has never been in love. His brothers are young boys of only twelve and fourteen. But the Spanish Mexicans have emotion in their voices when they are mere babies.”

“Have you ever known a young man you thought you cared a little for?” Marjorie asked half curiously. She could not recall in her several years of friendship with Ronny that her brilliant talented friend had ever accorded more than careless attention to a young man of her acquaintance.

“No, I have not, and I don’t wish to,” Ronny replied with considerable emphasis. “I never expect to meet any such person. I couldn’t fall in love if I tried.”

“That’s what I used to think.” Marjorie held up a warning hand. “Be careful,” she continued, laughing softly. “The moment when you are the most certain that you can never fall in love may be the signal for a change in your destiny. You may never fall in love. You may just tumble into it someday without a sign or word of warning.”

CHAPTER V.
 
ON THE SPEEDWELL

“I’ve always tried my hardest to get whatever I wanted for myself no matter how much trouble I made for other people in the getting. Now here I am, caught in a snare. What’s hardest of all to bear, Marjorie, is having hurt Peter the Great. Because I behaved like a vandal at Hamilton he’s ashamed in his heart to come back to Carden Hedge to live the year round.”

Seated opposite Marjorie on the comfortable observation platform of Peter Cairns’ luxurious private car “Speedwell,” Leslie cast a gloomy glance at her pretty companion out of remorseful eyes.

“That’s why I realized what a mistake it would be to have that Leila Harper Playhouse business announced in chapel with my father’s and my name attached,” Leslie continued. “Again if it were announced in chapel with us left out it might start a whole lot of wondering about whom I had sold the garage site to, et cetera. Every move Peter and I made afterward would be watched. Of course we’d be found out. Then someone might start a rumor that we were ashamed to come forward because of my misdeeds. It would be true, but not very pleasant. If we wait till the theatre is built and ready for Leila we’ll have a good chance of getting away with it, sub rosa.”

“I like the idea of waiting until the theatre is finished before honoring Leila in chapel,” Marjorie returned frankly. “But, Leslie, by then you may feel differently about not wishing your name or your father’s given.”

“No; I shan’t. I’m very sure I shan’t.” Leslie moodily shook her head. “It can never be that way, Marjorie. I wish it could.”

It was the last afternoon of the journey across continent which Mr. and Mrs. Dean and Marjorie were completing in Peter Cairns’ private car. The next morning would see the travelers in New York City. From New York the Deans were going for two weeks to their favorite summer resort, Severn Beach.

Marjorie had not altogether relished the idea of the journey East in so much exclusive luxury. She had looked forward to the merry more democratic canopy of the Pullman car where from San Francisco to Chicago they might count upon finding plenty of pleasant traveling acquaintances in the same car with themselves. They had had great fun going West.

Yet it had seemed to her that an acceptance of Leslie’s invitation was the only true way of showing Peter Cairns’ daughter that she held nothing of the past against her. Leslie and her father motored to Manaña there to extend their invitation to the Deans in person. Marjorie’s General and Captain had left the decision to her.

During the enjoyable trip East Leslie and Marjorie had had time to grow gradually acquainted with each other in a pleasant, half reserved fashion which promised someday to merge into a real friendship. Thrown in each other’s company the two girls had discussed little else except the subject of Hamilton College. Leslie was never tired of hearing of the funny sayings and doings of Leila, Jerry and Muriel Harding. She discussed her own troubles with the San Soucians as their ring-leader in a humorous fashion which Marjorie found vastly amusing. It had revealed in Leslie a keen sense of humor which Marjorie had often suspected her of possessing even in her lawless days.

While she talked freely of Hamilton College as she had known it when a student there Leslie had thus far pointedly avoided mention of the one thing she wished most to tell Marjorie. She and Marjorie had more than once discussed her determination to present Leila with the directorship of the theatre anonymously when the playhouse should be completed. Under the able management of Peter Graham work on the new theatre had been going forward steadily since the previous June.

On this last afternoon of the journey Mr. and Mrs. Dean, Peter Cairns and his confidential secretary, Wilkins, were deep in a game of whist in the small salon of the Speedwell. Marjorie and Leslie had the observation platform to themselves. Soberly glancing at Leslie’s clouded features Marjorie felt nothing but the deepest sympathy for the girl she had once been tempted to rank as an enemy. She was understanding only too clearly the difficulties which now beset Leslie’s proposed path of benevolence.

“Never is such a long time, Leslie,” Marjorie’s tone was brightly comforting. “It’s two years, you know, since you left college. Most of the students you knew then, or who knew of you, have been graduated. There is a much better spirit abroad on the campus, too, than in the old days.” Marjorie stopped, flushing. “I didn’t mean to remind you—” she began contritely.

“No harm done, Bean.” A faint lighting of Leslie’s dark features accompanied the ridiculous nickname she had once derisively given Marjorie. “Of course there’s a better spirit now on the campus. You won what you fought for. But there are a certain number of students there still who would love to pick me to pieces, given an opportunity. It would be said of me that I was trying to make money cover my flivvers.”

“But your motive is sincere,” Marjorie cried. “Besides the theatre is not to be built on the campus. I think you ought to brave matters out, Leslie. The Travelers will stand by you through thick and thin. We understand how generous you are, and in time we shall make others see it. That is, if there should be others. Sometimes one sweeping act of nobility such as you propose to do changes everything for the best.”

“It won’t for me,” was Leslie’s pessimistic prediction. “It’s not really about myself I care. To honor Leila, and help the dorms along. What more can one ask?” Leslie made an earnest gesture. “It’s like this, Marjorie. As an unknown donor I’ll be covered with glory. As a known one I’ll be buried under opprobrium.”

“‘Alas for him who never sees the stars shine through his cypress trees,’” Marjorie quoted lightly with an effort toward bringing Leslie out of her somber mood. “I still advise you to go ahead and not hide your light under a bushel.”

“No, I can’t,” Leslie replied with a trace of her old-time gruffness. “I’m going to tell you a secret. I went to Prexy Matthews last spring and asked him if he would give me a chance to come back to Hamilton and do over my senior year. When I went there I intended to tell him how much it would mean to me on my father’s account and of how hard I would try to redeem my past flivvers. He was frosty as a January morning with the mercury way below zero. I had hardly mentioned what I came for when he set his jaws and said that under the circumstances of my expulsion from college he could not for a moment entertain such a request.”

“Leslie Cairns!” Marjorie could not repress a sympathetic exclamation.

“It’s a fact.” The blood rose to Leslie’s dark cheeks in a crimson wave. She went on with shamed reluctance. “I thought he might say ‘no,’ but he made me feel as though he hated even to speak to me. I know I deserved it. I wasn’t in his office five minutes hardly. My nerve went back on me. I had to hurry away, or else cry. I didn’t have time to tell him anything but that I’d like to try my senior year over again.”

“Oh, that was too bad!” Marjorie reached over and laid a consoling hand on one of Leslie’s. “Did you go to Hamilton Hall to see him, or to his house?”

“To Hamilton Hall,” Leslie returned briefly.

“I am sorry you didn’t go to his house instead. It might have made a difference. I can’t be sure that it would have,” she added honestly.

She was remembering President Matthews’ anger at the time of Leslie’s expulsion from Hamilton; not only because of the hazing affair in which she and Leslie had figured. There was also the recollection of the misunderstanding which Leslie had made between the president and his old friend, Miss Remson, the manager of Wayland Hall. Again there was the ugly fact of secret collusion between Leslie and Miss Sayres, the president’s secretary to be considered.

“Oh, it was too much to expect. I knew Prexy would frown me down without a hearing. But I’d promised myself, that, for my father’s sake, there’d be nothing I’d leave undone to make up for the disappointment I caused him,” Leslie said with regretful vehemence.

“You were very brave to do it, Leslie.” Marjorie’s hand tightened its clasp on Leslie’s.

“I was glad to try to make amends.” Leslie was silent for a moment. “You’ve never done anything to harm another person, Marjorie,” she burst forth. “You can’t possibly understand how my heart went down when my father said to me last spring that he had hoped some day to live at Carden Hedge, but that—he’d changed his mind. He never said once: ‘It’s all your fault.’ I wish he had. And I am the one who cheated him of happiness. He’d love to live at the Hedge—if I hadn’t made such a mess of things at Hamilton. That’s what I did to my father, the person I love best in the world. And all the time I thought I was doing smart things, and getting even with you.”

Leslie looked drearily away across the green fleeing landscape, her face bleak and somber.

“Don’t feel so crushed, Leslie. You are anxious to please your father. After a while you will find a way. To be willing is half the battle. First thing you know some good will come of it.”

“I wish I could make myself believe it.” Leslie still kept her head turned away. “The one thing I’d like most to do, I can’t do. That’s to try over again my senior year at Hamilton. If only Prexy had softened and said I might! After I had been graduated from Hamilton, the way would have been smooth for my father and me to live at the Hedge and be happy. After Prexy turned me down so frigidly I knew he’d never permit my name to be announced at chapel as the giver of the theatre. I’ll never put foot on the campus again, not even to see Doris Monroe. Would you?”

“No; not in the present circumstances,” Marjorie made frank reply. “There is no reason why you shouldn’t come to the Arms to see Miss Susanna and Jerry and me. We’ll welcome you.”

“I’ll come.” Leslie brightened. “Mrs. Gaylord and I will have our old apartment at the Hamilton House. There’s really no place else for us in Hamilton. I want to stay on there to watch the building of the theatre. My father will be off and away. There is nothing to keep him in a small place like Hamilton. If we lived at the Hedge, he’d be keen on gardening, and beautifying the estate. He’d enjoy the Hamilton links, and probably get up a polo team. He’s a wonder at polo.”

Leslie clasped her hands behind her head in a quick, nervous motion. She closed her eyes, forcing back the tears which were gathering behind her tightly-shut eyelids.

Marjorie stole a sympathetic, furtive glance at her. She thought the touches of vivid cherry color on Leslie’s sleeveless gray wash satin frock charmingly lightened her companion’s dark skin and irregular features. She guessed Leslie to be perilously near tears and noted that her subdued pensive expression had softened her face to a peculiar attractiveness.

While Leslie had given up all hope of a return to Hamilton campus as a student, Marjorie was just beginning to consider how such a miracle might be brought to pass. She wondered if an appeal on her part to President Matthews would help Leslie’s case. At least she could put forward to the president a generous side of Leslie of which he was not yet aware. She resolved to tell him of Leslie’s love for her father, of her deep regret at being unable to make the restitution she so greatly desired to make, of her anxiety to promote his happiness.

Recollection of Doctor Matthews’ stern face, on the fateful day when the San Soucians had been arraigned before him and the College Board, returned vividly to Marjorie. For an instant her impulsive determination to seek such an interview with him in behalf of Leslie wavered.

What argument could she present to the learned man of affairs which should be strong enough to justify her request for another trial for Leslie at Hamilton College? She could not but believe that no such request had ever been made to him before. Then, again, Leslie was rated by the Hamilton executive board as the most lawless student who had ever enrolled at that college.

Leslie watched the fleeting scenery as the train rushed eastward, her eyes misted and unseeing. She was not even aware of the shifting panorama of woods, meadows, streams and houses as the train steamed on its way. Instead she was seeing herself as she had been when she flaunted through college, unscrupulous, bullying and untruthful.

She was amazed to think that she had lasted until her senior year. Her one redeeming trait had been her ability to keep up in her classes. She had always been able to make fair recitations on a small amount of study. She wished with desperate fervor now that she had been a “dig” instead of a thorn to the faculty. No; she had been foolish in imagining that she could live down her past unenviable reputation were she to return to the campus.

“Oh!” Marjorie straightened in her chair with a suddenness that made Leslie open her eyes.

“Is that all?” Leslie smiled faintly as she saw Marjorie carefully brush a large cinder from the skirt of her white frock. She folded her hands again behind her head and resumed her dark musing.

Marjorie smiled, too, but said nothing. She might have told Leslie that it was not the appearance of the cinder which had brought forth the “Oh!” She had inadvertently stumbled upon a truth relative to a possible return to the campus of Leslie which she believed could not fail to impress President Matthews.

CHAPTER VI.
 
LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM

“We are lucky. This is the very kind of night we most wish for our stroll and sail.” Marjorie was rejoicing in the beauty of the night as she and Hal walked slowly along over the white sands.

“How could the night be anything but perfect with you home again, Marjorie?” Hal Macy glanced down at the white-clad girl walking beside him as though he contemplated stopping and gathering her in his arms.

“It might be raining torrents, and still I’d have just come home,” Marjorie answered in the matter-of-fact tone which had once been Hal’s despair. She cast a swift roguish upward glance at her adoring fiancé from under her long curling lashes.

“But it isn’t. It couldn’t be,” Hal tenderly asserted “Say it again, dear. That you are glad to see me; to be walking this old beach again with me. That——”

“I do love to walk this old beach with you—but not too far behind the others. That’s the way Connie and Laurie used to do, and then we used to laugh at them,” Marjorie gaily assured. “Come on, let’s hurry.” She ran playfully ahead of Hal, a radiantly pretty figure in the white moonlight.

Hal overtook her in a few long, purposeful strides, saying: “You can’t escape me, beautiful moonbeam girl. You are all in white just as you were on that other night last year when you wouldn’t let me tell you that I loved you. You’ve the same kind of soft white scarf over your shoulders, and two stars for eyes. It’s you instead of the moonlight who lures my poor heartstrings out of me.”

“You have never forgotten that moonlight verse, have you?” Marjorie said lightly. She refused to say that she was pleased to know he had not forgotten it.

“How could I forget it? You quoted it to me on the unhappiest night of my life. Afterward I quoted it you on the happiest night. Is it a wonder—”

“You’d better hurry up if you expect to go sailing this evening,” admonished a cheerful, interrupting voice. Unnoticed by the lovers Danny Seabrooke had come up behind them, bent on teasing the absorbed couple.

“You’d better run ahead, Dan-yell, and untie the boat,” Hal advised in an anything but sentimental tone.

“You are miles behind the times. Our gallant ship floats free. Only Armitage is getting peeved because he has to hang on to the straining galleon’s rope,” Danny added with grinning significance.

“Run along and tell him that patience is a virtue,” retorted Hal with pleasant irony.

“Tell him yourself when you see him. That will be some time during the evening—we hope. I’ve run till I’m out of breath. I’m going to poke along with you two. It will be restful—and interesting.”

“You may find cause to change your mind,” Hal warned darkly.

“Never. Marjorie will protect me.” Danny beamed trusting faith at Marjorie. He prudently ranged himself upon her other side, peering timidly forward at Hal, his freckled features alive with ludicrous anxiety.

In the midst of a merry argument between him and Hal the trio arrived at the little pier to which the Oriole, Hal’s motor launch, was tied. On the dock three smiling-faced young people awaited Hal and Marjorie. The happiness which Jerry Macy, Constance and Lawrence Armitage felt over the beautiful culmination of Marjorie’s and Hal’s comradeship was as deep and abiding in its own way as was the love between the newly betrothed pair.

“Such a lovely evening.” Jerry greeted them with effusive politeness. “So glad you managed to get here after all.”

“You may give me credit for rushing ’em to the pier,” put in Danny modestly.

“There’s plenty of room for an argument, but who wants to argue on a night like this?” Hal returned equably, fixing laughing blue eyes upon Danny.

“You are right, Mr. Macy.” Danny made Hal a derisively respectful bow. “I hope others here besides us cherish the same opinion. You do, I am sure. Don’t you, Geraldine?” He turned hopefully to Jerry.

“I don’t cherish anything,” Jerry returned crushingly.

“Ha-a-a! How sad!” Danny heaved a loud sigh. “What a dreary life you must lead!”

“It suits me,” Jerry asserted, with a cheerful smile. “Who’s going to take the wheel on the run seaward?” she inquired generally. “Don’t all speak at once. Don’t speak at all, if you’re not crazy for the pilot job. I’d like it, if no one else wants it.”

“Oh, if you insist.” Laurie Armitage willingly accorded Jerry the wheel. He stood steadying the boat at the little pier while Hal helped the three girls over the side and into the launch.

Constance and Laurie Armitage had lately returned from another year’s study of music in Europe. They had not reached Sanford in time to see Marjorie before she had gone West with her father and mother to visit Ronny. In consequence they had looked forward to her sunny presence at Severn Beach with an affectionate impatience second only to Hal’s.

“So glad you brought the guitar, Laurie,” Marjorie said as Laurie picked it up from the pier floor, where he had laid it briefly, and passed it over the side of the launch to Constance. “Do you know any Spanish songs? I heard such beautiful ones at Manaña.”

“Only two or three. We are going to Spain next winter to study the Spanish music and find a very old Spanish opera for Connie, if we can. We found an old music folio in Paris in a queer little odds and ends shop that had three numbers in it from an old Spanish opera called ‘la Encantadora’; the enchantress. Next time we go abroad it will be on the trail of la Encantadora,” Laurie declared lightly as he stepped into the launch behind the trio of girls.

“Sometime you and Connie must go to Mexico and hunt up some Spanish Mexican music,” Marjorie said with enthusiasm. She went on to tell them of how she and Ronny had been serenaded by Teresa’s sons and of the tender beauty of the old Spanish song “Las Estrellas.”

Presently the Oriole was darting seaward in the white moonlight with Jerry at the wheel and Danny beside her entertaining her with his ever ready flow of nonsense. Laurie was lightly strumming the guitar as he waited for Constance to decide upon a song. Marjorie and Hal sat side by side on a long cushioned bench looking like two contented children.

Hal would have been far better content, however, to hold one of Marjorie’s hands in his own. He allowed them to lie loosely in her lap because he knew she preferred them to be thus. His Violet Girl did not wear her heart on her sleeve. She treated him with her old-time friendly gaiety, showing only occasional flashes of deeper feeling for him. Hal was confident that Marjorie loved him. Unless she had been very sure of her own heart she would never have given him her promise. Yet the reserve which he had for so long schooled himself to maintain when with her still clung to him.

Constance began the impromptu concert with an old French harvest song which was one of the vocal gems the Armitages had brought to light during the past winter. Laurie accompanied her softly on the guitar, the rhythmic beat of the music blending with the faint wash of the water against the boat’s sides. From that she drifted to “Hark, the gentle lark!” and from it to one and another of Brahms’ songs, already favorites of the little company.

“The next number of our program will be a touching sentimental song by Dan-yell Seabrooke,” Laurie banteringly announced. After singing their old Brahms’ favorite, “The Sapphio Ode,” Constance had laughingly gone on a strike, declaring that it was time for someone else to sing.

“What reason have you to suspect that it will be?” Danny fixed a severe gaze upon Laurie. “Do I look sentimental? Do I act sentimental? Do I seem sentimental?”

“Nothing like trying.” Laurie ignored the forceful interrogations. “If you try, and don’t succeed—” He made a motion as of pitching something over the boat’s side into the water.

“Nev-vur! I shall succeed; if not in singing, then in dodging,” Danny averred with great resolution. “Hand me the guitar. I wouldn’t trust you with it in such an emergency. You might play off the key and spoil my song.”

“Is that so? What about my risk in handing you the guitar and having it spoiled?”

“About fifty-fifty, I should say.” Danny grinned amiably and reached for the guitar. He pretended to tune it, grumbling. Presently in the midst of his pretense of disfavor he surprised his smiling companions with the charming prelude of “What does your heart say?” a popular baritone solo from “The Orchid,” a New York musical success.

It was the first time that any of the five listeners to Danny had ever heard him seriously attempt a sentimental song. Possessed of a tuneful baritone voice Danny had earned a reputation among his friends as a singer of comic songs. Hal and Laurie regarded the departure merely as a decidedly successful attempt upon Danny’s part to make good. Into Marjorie’s and Constance’s minds, however, the thought sprang instantly that Danny was deeply in love—with Jerry, of course.

As for Jerry! She was hoping no one could see the added color in her cheeks by the bright moonlight. During Danny’s rendition of the song she had occupied herself industriously with the wheel, her round, babyish face as nearly a blank as she could make it. Danny hardly ended the solo when she began clapping her hands in light applause.

“Bravo! You win!” she called out. “You certainly gave a fine imitation of a sentimental warbler, Dan-yell. Laurie didn’t think you could do it.”

“Oh, I have nerve enough for anything,” Danny retorted. “What does Mr. Lawrence Armitage know of my talents and capabilities?”

“Not a thing, thank fortune,” asserted Laurie with stress.

“You may have your guitar. I wouldn’t sing you another song if you begged me to. I am going to devote myself to Geraldine. She never treats me kindly, but she’s an improvement upon you.” Danny wisely produced this plea as an excuse to seat himself close to the wheel and Jerry.

She received him without comment, pretending to be listening to the buzz of conversation going on among the others. Laurie was running a series of chords up and down the guitar strings which had an oddly familiar sound both to her ears and Marjorie’s. He continued sounding them a moment or two, then glanced at Hal, nodding.

Suddenly Hal’s sweet echoing tenor voice lifted itself on the moonlit air in a lilting melody that Marjorie had good cause to remember.

“Down the center, little one,

Life for us has just begun!”

Hal was singing the quaint words of the Irish Minuet. To Marjorie it would ever be the song of songs. Like the prince’s kiss which had wakened the sleeping beauty from her enchanted sleep, sound of it had awakened her dreaming heart and opened her ears to the voice of love.

Involuntarily she stretched forth a hand until it rested lightly upon one of the singer’s. Instantly Hal had caught it, holding it in his own. He bent an adoring glance upon her, and sang on.

“This was what I was wishing for,” he declared fondly the moment he had finished the song. He gathered her slim hand more closely in his own. “I hardly dared take it with everybody looking on, for fear you’d not wish it.”

“It was dear in you to sing that, Hal.” The eyes of the pair met in a long fond glance of affection. “You know I shall always love it best of all songs. You understand why.”

“Yes, dear.” There was quiet rapture in the response. “I forgot to send back the music to it to Leila last spring. So I brought it to the Beach for Laurie to play. I thought you’d like to hear it again.”

“I love it. Think how much of happiness we owe Leila Greatheart. If it had not been for her Irish play you would never have come to Hamilton. You’d probably have gone to Alaska, as you had planned to do.”

“I had begun to feel that I couldn’t bear to see you for a while, knowing you didn’t love me,” Hal confessed. “I knew I’d never stop caring for you. I was sure it was the only thing for me to do.”

“I’m so glad you didn’t go. You see, Hal, I should have known later—that I cared—perhaps too late.” Marjorie’s lovely features shadowed. “I had begun to know that I missed you, and I’d read Brooke Hamilton’s journal and had felt a kind of terrible despair over it. He hadn’t understood Angela’s love for him until after her serious illness. Just when he was beginning to be happy he lost her. I couldn’t help wondering if it would be so with me. Brooke Hamilton helped us to our happiness. On that account there is something I’d like to do—I know it would please Miss Susanna. It’s about—about our wedding.”

“Our wedding.” Hal repeated the two magic words in a kind of beatified daze. “What about our wedding, dearest. Are you going to tell me that you’ve changed your mind and are going to marry me in the fall instead of next June?” There was a suppressed, hopeful note in the question.

“Not in the fall, or next June, either.” Marjorie’s up-flashing smile did not match her negative answer. “I can’t desert Hamilton until the dormitory is finished and dedicated and the biography completed. And there’s the Leila Harper Playhouse, too. So it couldn’t possibly be in the fall. But”—Marjorie made a tiny pause—“I think my work at Hamilton will have been completed by the last of next April.” She made another brief pause, then said with direct simplicity: “I’d like our wedding to take place on the evening of May Day, at Hamilton Arms. May Day was Brooke Hamilton’s birthday.”

“Marjorie!” Hal exclaimed very softly. He caught Marjorie’s free hand, then prisoned both her hands between his own. “My heart went down when you said ‘not next June.’ But the first of May! That is sooner than I had hoped for. You can depend upon Miss Susanna to back that plan. She’ll be delighted. How about General and Captain? Have you told them yet?”

“No.” Marjorie shook her curly head. “Not yet. There is to be a grand Dean confab tomorrow morning right after breakfast. Oh, I know they will be willing to give up having the wedding at Castle Dean. In some ways I’d love to be married from my dear pretty home in Sanford where our old crowd had such good times. But the Arms has an even stronger claim upon me. I want to make Miss Susanna happy. She has been so wonderful to Hamilton College, and to me,” Marjorie ended eloquently.

Hal’s approval of her idea was not expressed in words. It came in the tightening of his hands on Marjorie’s and the glance of unutterable devotion which he bent upon her.

“You see, Hal,” Marjorie said after a short interval of rapt silence between them, “Hamilton Arms has become like a second home to me. I’m not afraid Miss Susanna would object to the fuss and decorating that must naturally go with a house wedding. She’d love it, because she loves us. I thought it all out when I was at Manaña. That is, the main points. Violets were Brooke Hamilton’s favorite flowers, and you call me your Violet girl. So I am going to have a violet wedding in the spring when there are loads of double, sweet-scented violets in bloom at the Arms.”

Completely absorbed in each other, Hal and Marjorie had drifted far away from the amused quartette of friends who were considerately ignoring their presence. While their friends kept up a lively murmur of conversation the lovers floated far and free upon the boundless sea of romance with love for their pilot.

“If they should come back this evening I’ll see that Macy takes his trick at the wheel,” Danny said to Jerry in a purposeful undertone.

“Oh, they won’t be back until someone leads them off the Oriole onto the pier.” Jerry’s reply was full of deep satisfaction. Marjorie’s final awakening to love for Hal would ever be a blessed marvel to Jerry. “What’s the matter with my steering? Don’t you like it?” she demanded of Danny.

“I have a high opinion of it,” Danny hastily assured. “Only I hate to see you so overworked. I should enjoy having you sit beside me on that bench over there, and holding your hand. I should enjoy——”

“I shouldn’t enjoy having you,” Jerry interrupted cruelly.

“Say not so. You have never trusted me with your nice plump little hand. I would be very careful of it,” he added ingratiatingly.

“No thank you. I’d rather be excused.”

“Why would you?” Danny persisted with an interested inquiring grin.

Jerry had to laugh. “How can I tell?” she countered. She felt the color rise to her cheeks, and was glad Danny couldn’t detect it by moonlight.

“You can’t—not until you’ve tried holding hands with me,” Danny asserted with a wise air.

“Some other time,” Jerry made indefinite, careless promise.

“No time like the present.” One of Danny’s hands suddenly covered one of Jerry’s as it rested on the wheel. “You wouldn’t be so mean as to leave me out of this hand-holding party, would you?” he asked, an undercurrent of seriousness in his bantering tones.

“No,” replied Jerry with sudden shy brevity. And for the remainder of the ride the Oriole had the advantage of double handpower at the wheel.

CHAPTER VII.
 
A BIT OF NEWS

“And Fifteen is vacant, you say? How queer.” Marjorie commented, her eyes on Leila Harper, who was arranging a row of glasses on her study table preparatory to filling them with imported ginger ale.

“As queer as the pea green hat that Mother Molly O’Toole found hanging on a gooseberry bush the day before the fair at Dongerry,” agreed Leila Harper with her broadest smile. She kept on smiling as she recited in her inimitable Celtic accent:

“Acushla, ’twas near to the day of the fair

And poor Mother Molly’d no bonnet to wear,

Except a frilled cap she had worn day by day,

And year after year in the same humble way.

She went out of doors, and she heaved such a sigh

She blew up a gale in the garden near-by,

It whisked a wee leprechaun out of a tree

He lost his green hat as away he did flee:

It hung on the bush where the gooseberries grew;

Next morn Molly found it all covered with dew.

She dried it, ’twas grandly becoming to wear,

And she took a fine prize at the Dongerry fair.”

“Certainly some remarkable things have happened in Ireland,” Muriel Harding declared mischievously. “Please, Irish witch woman, may I pass the glasses?”

“You may; but spill not a drop out of one of them,” Leila cautioned. She picked up a cake knife from the table and flourished it over a huge black chocolate cake with thick white icing.

“You haven’t told me yet how it happens that Fifteen is vacant, Leila Greatheart,” Marjorie reminded.

“In a minute. Let me start Midget going with the cake and I will tell you anything,” was Leila’s rash promise.

“Whether you know it or not,” slyly added Ronny Lynne.

“Whether I know it or not,” Leila repeated firmly.

A burst of laughter rose from her six companions. The little group of seven girls who had been the first Travelers at Hamilton College five years before were gathered once more in the room occupied by Leila Harper and Vera Mason at Wayland Hall during that long happy period. It lacked only a few days of the formal opening of Hamilton College and the seven post-graduates were already back on the campus eager to begin what would undoubtedly be to them their most momentous year at Hamilton College.

Readers of the “Marjorie Dean High School Series,” “The Marjorie Dean College Series” and “The Marjorie Dean Post Graduate Series,” each comprising four volumes, have followed Marjorie through many of her girlhood adventures as a student, first at Sanford High School, later at Hamilton College, where she found her work and brought happiness to Miss Susanna Hamilton, the embittered great-niece of Brooke Hamilton, who was the distinguished founder of Hamilton College.

Marjorie, having been chosen by Miss Susanna as best fitted, in her estimation, to write the biography of Brooke Hamilton, had returned to Hamilton Arms once more there to bring to completion the delightful literary task she had begun the previous March.

As yet, her General and her Captain alone were in possession of her plan for a violet wedding at the Arms on the evening of May Day. Miss Susanna had not yet been made acquainted with what would seem to her a visitation of good fortune. Marjorie was saving the request she purposed to make of her devoted friend until a particularly propitious occasion.

“Hurry and pass the cake, Vera. This tyrannical Celtic person says you must before she will tell us a thing,” Marjorie urged, laughing.

“Here, help yourselves.” Vera hastily set the plate of cake Leila had handed her upon the table with a hospitable gesture. “You can’t even have paper plates to put it on. We forgot to buy them. We used to boast of four china plates, but our guests are so rough.”

“Too bad. Never mind. Luciferous has a notebook. Delighted, Luciferous.” Muriel laid calm hold upon the notebook in Lucy’s hand. “Yes, you must,” she said with reproving stress as Lucy clung to the book. She captured it, tore sheets of paper from it and handed them round to the tune of Lucy’s grumbling at such a waste of good paper. “Just as good as plates,” Muriel declared jovially. She hastily transferred a slice of cake to her make-shift plate and beamed encouragingly upon Leila.

Leila returned the smile in kind. “The reason Fifteen is still vacant,” she began, “is because no one has applied for it. Now what could be queerer?”

“Not anyone?” Jerry Macy’s eyes grew round.

“Not anyone. All Miss Remson’s other vacancies have been filled. She thinks it is odd, but she doesn’t mind. She will probably have an application for it soon. It is a very desirable room, you know.”

“We surely do,” Marjorie and Jerry answered in merry chorus.

“Perhaps two girls from one of the other campus houses may hear it is vacant and take it. Undoubtedly they will. It will never go begging,” was Jerry’s opinion.

“Fifteen is one of the best rooms at the Hall. We can speak from experience, can’t we, estimable Bean?” Jerry remarked, turning humorous eyes upon Marjorie.

“Can we?” Marjorie returned the glance of affection. “When will Miss Remson be home, Leila? It seems odd to come back to the Hall and not see her first thing.”

The five Sanford chums had arrived at Hamilton late on the previous afternoon. They had been met at the Hamilton station by Leila and Vera and triumphantly whisked to Hamilton Arms in Vera’s car. There Miss Susanna Hamilton had been awaiting their arrival with fond impatience. Exuberant celebration had followed their arrival at the Arms. There had been a delightful dinner in the famous Chinese room and the buoyant guests had remained at the Arms overnight.

It was now early afternoon of the next day. Marjorie and Jerry had come over to Wayland Hall for one of their old-time social sessions in Leila’s and Vera’s rooms. The latter had returned from a summer spent in Ireland over a week previous to the Sanford girls’ arrival on the campus. They had come direct from the big ocean steamer to Hamilton campus and Wayland Hall.

“She’ll be here tomorrow.” Miss Remson, the brisk little manager of the Hall, was away on a brief vacation of a week at the seashore. “She was going to refuse an old friend’s invitation on account of expecting you girls. Midget and I made her change her mind, and go.”

“I’m so glad that you did,” Marjorie returned. “I’m anxious to see her. I hope two dandy girls will take Fifteen.”

“We shall need them,” Leila said with a suspicion of dryness.

“Why do you say that, Leila Greatheart?” A little pucker of anxiety showed itself upon Marjorie’s smooth forehead. “You must have some very good reason for such an opinion.”

“I have,” Leila made prompt reply. “There is still danger at the Hall of the calamity of the house divided against itself.”

“Isn’t there less now than when Muriel was on the outs with the Ice Queen and the Ice Queen was on the outs with Gentleman Gus and the Bertramites?” Ronny humorously referred to the Travelers’ vernacular in the way of names. “This year, remember, they will all stand shoulder to shoulder with us.”

“You forget the Screech Owl, who was born a gossip and a disturber,” Leila reminded with a frown. “She was on her good behavior last spring when she had a part in my Irish play. Did not I write the part of the village gossip for her, on purpose, that she might see herself? She saw nothing but her own glory as an actress. But she was so pleased that she talked of herself and not of anyone else for a while. This much good I did. But I happen to know she went back to gossiping again.”

“Whom did she gossip about? Doris? She naturally would, since Doris had cut her acquaintance,” Muriel showed considerable interest. “That was directly after the Rustic Romp, you know. They disagreed over Leslie Cairns.”

“That was precisely where the shoe pinched,” Leila asserted. “It was Leslie Cairns who Miss Peyton chose to blame for her falling out with Doris. Then she could not resist the temptation to be spiteful.”

“What did Miss Peyton say about Leslie?” Marjorie asked with a suspicion of troubled annoyance in her question.

“What you might expect. That she had attended the Rustic Romp. That fine bit of news came to me through Miss Crawford, on the day before college closed,” Leila said sarcastically. “She came to me and asked me in horrified tones if it were true that Miss Dean had smuggled Miss Cairns, an expelled student, into the gym on the night of the Romp.”

“Who could have told Miss Crawford that except Miss Peyton?” Vera cried indignantly. “And why should she start such a tale about Marjorie?”

“Because she is still angry with me,” Marjorie returned composedly. “She wanted Jane to blow the whistle for unmasking. I asked Jane to wait a little. Miss Peyton does not know positively that Leslie was at the Romp.”

“That’s exactly the point. She has no real ground for circulating that story. It’s unjust to Marjorie. There has been too much of such unfairness in the past.” Leila’s lips set in a forbidding line.

“Don’t worry about it for a minute, Leila Greatheart,” said Marjorie soothingly. “I mean about anything Miss Peyton may choose to say of me. We’ll have to try to conquer her by winning over the Hall to our code of ethics. When she discovers that no one likes to hear gossip, perhaps she will stop gossiping.”

“That’s a fine, rosy Bean view of things. But will it ever come true?” Jerry propounded, tilting her head to one side and rolling doubtful eyes.

“It won’t if you scoff at it, and treat it lightly,” Marjorie retorted.

“Depend on the Screech Owl to start something. Screech Owl!” Muriel repeated the name with mock admiration. “What could be more appropriate? My nobility doesn’t extend to refraining from that fond title.”

“You are gossiping.” Lucy Warner pointed an accusing finger at Muriel.

“Never. Truth is truth, no matter where ’tis uttered. I’m merely saying to you girls what I should take great pleasure in saying to the Screech Owl herself. I long to tell her her right name.” Muriel accompanied her fervent declaration with a sweeping gesture.

“Perhaps vacation joys will make her forget the Rustic Romp and what she thinks she knows about Leslie,” Ronny made light prediction.

“Very optimistic, but not at all likely,” was Vera’s opinion.

“How did you answer Miss Crawford, Leila.” Marjorie had missed most of the gay exchange of raillery among her companions. Her brain was busy with the same problem that had invaded her thoughts on the last afternoon she and Leslie Cairns had been together on the Speedwell.

“I asked her a question in return for hers. I said: ‘Who told you that such a thing had happened?’ She tossed her head and said: ‘I prefer not to answer that question.’ Then I smiled at her with fine Celtic good humor, and said: ‘And I prefer not to answer yours.’ It was on the campus near the Bean holder that we met. She walked away in a miff. And I have not seen her since,” Leila ended genially.

“It’s too bad.” Marjorie stared at Leila with a troubled air.

“Now why should it be?” Leila demanded, smiling. “I have no admiration for Miss Crawford, nor never did have. She is too ready to believe unpleasant gossip.”

“I’m not thinking of Miss Crawford. I’m thinking of Leslie.” Marjorie’s winsome smile broke out.

“I suspected that you had sympathy for someone besides me. I kept quiet out of Irish politeness.” Despite her light retort Leila was surveying Marjorie with true Celtic shrewdness. She knew Marjorie to be at the point of announcing something of especial import.

The other girls were hardly less keen at reading the signs and arriving at the same conclusion. Thus far none of her chums knew of the intimate conversation she and Leslie Cairns had held on that last memorable afternoon the two girls had spent on the observation platform of Peter Cairns’ private car. Marjorie had regarded it in the light of a secret confidence. Now, however, she had decided to impart it to the little group of Travelers as a matter of interest to Leslie. The six Travelers present already knew of the part Leslie Cairns had played the previous spring in the Rustic Romp. Leslie had requested Marjorie to tell her intimates of the affair. “I’d like your Beanstalks to know the rights of that performance,” she had said to Marjorie with a tinge of humor.

“Girls;” Marjorie’s clear decided intonation brought all eyes to bear upon her; “Leslie Cairns wants just one thing above all others that I wish we could help her to gain. She wants to come back to the campus and do her senior year over again.”

CHAPTER VIII.
 
PLEDGED TO STAND BY

“What?” Jerry allowed the cake knife in her hand to drop squarely upon the cake. She had been poising it over the big square delicacy preparatory to replenishing the cake plate. In her surprise she vented Leslie Cairns’ own pet ejaculation.

“Good night!” Muriel Harding pretended collapse in her chair.

“I am afraid she is courting the impossible.” Vera Mason shook her head.

“There’s something in your tone, Beauty, that makes me think it might not be impossible.” Leila was regarding Marjorie with a quizzical smile. “Yet for the life of me I cannot see how it might happen.”

“I’m not in the least sure that it could,” was Marjorie’s candid reply. “I had thought that as soon as Prexy came back to the campus I would go to him and put in a plea for Leslie. I have in mind certain arguments that might appeal to him. In thinking about her I have realized, that, if he gave her permission to enroll again she would have to go through a good deal of unpleasantness on the campus. I realized it more when Leila was telling us about what Miss Crawford had said.”

“It might not be so terribly hard for her, Marjorie. She wouldn’t try, of course, to live on the campus. Her father would undoubtedly open Carden Hedge.” Ronny took this cheerful view of the matter.

“No; Leslie says if she could try her senior year over she would not risk living at the Hedge for fear a lot of things about her old lawless days on the campus might come up and be talked over. Then her father would probably be criticized for her bad behavior. She says she couldn’t bear that.”

“She could live at the Hamilton House and get away with it,” Muriel said confidently. “She could arrange her program so as to go from one class to another without having to stay on the campus a moment longer than recitation hours.”

“She made satisfactory recitations in the old days,” Leila remarked musingly. “I used to wonder how she did it. She was always out in her car or entertaining at Baretti’s, or the Colonial.”

“She was within two months of being graduated from Hamilton when the sword fell,” Vera reminded.

“The trouble is,” Marjorie drew a regretful breath, “she has already been to Prexy about it.”

“She has?” rose a concerted cry.

Marjorie nodded soberly. “He wouldn’t listen to her,” she continued. “She was so hurt and confused at his brusqueness that she didn’t try to explain at all why she wanted to come back to the campus. That was the very thing that might have influenced President Matthews to give her another trial.”

“This is news,” Leila emphasized. “How can one help but admire Leslie Cairns for her courage in facing Prexy. I believe now she may turn out well.”

Marjorie smiled. She wondered what Leila would say could she have even an inkling of the wonderful plan Leslie had in view for her. “She is brave as can be,” she agreed. “I feel as though she hadn’t had a fair opportunity to soften the hard heart of Prexy. That is the reason I am going to brave Prexy in his den all by myself. Miss Susanna offered to go with me. Then we talked it over and decided I had best go alone. What do you think, Lucy? Is there any possibility that Prexy might change his mind about Leslie? You know him better than we.”

“Yes, Luciferous Warniferous, high and exalted scribe of the Prexy realm, speak, and tell us the worst,” Muriel made a commanding gesture at which Lucy merely giggled.

“I don’t know what to say.” Her small face suddenly sobered. “Prexy is the kindest man I know until he has been really shocked by something that someone has done. Then he grows terribly stern. He was angrier about the trouble Leslie Cairns made between him and Miss Remson than the hazing. Yet he will do more for you, Marjorie, than he would for almost anyone else. You may be able to persuade him to give Leslie another trial. But—” She came to an abrupt pause, her green eyes fastened peculiarly upon Marjorie’s face with eloquent significance.

“I understand you, Lucy. You are right. I shouldn’t care to have Prexy offer Leslie another trial just to please me. The only way for him to offer it to her is because he has become convinced that it is the best thing to do.”

“And that will be your job, Bean—to convince Prexy that second thoughts are best. Such an easy little task,” Jerry declared satirically. “You certainly have had some splendid jobs since you came to Hamilton. I feel the inspiration stealing over me to jingle. Ahem! Aha! Bzzz-zz! Whir-r-r! Br-rr-p!”

“No easy task, it is to ask,

Our Prexy to relent,

Smile on, serene, undaunted Bean,

Until he has unbent.”

“That is good advice, Jeremiah. I shall proceed to follow it,” laughed Marjorie.

“And I shall proceed to copy the jingle.” Leila confiscated another sheet of paper from Lucy’s notebook and jotted down the jingle. She smiled widely to herself as she wrote. Leila had a plan of her own regarding Jerry’s jingles which she intended to carry out presently.

“I shall go to see President Matthews as soon as he returns from the shore. That will be the last of the week. I’ll wait until Monday to make my call,” Marjorie announced decisively.

“If I were you I should go to his house, Marjorie,” Lucy advised in her serious fashion. “It’s more quiet at his home office. At Hamilton Hall he has so many interruptions. Persons are continually passing in and out of his office.”

“That was what I thought. And if I should succeed—” Marjorie broke off. Her brown eyes traveled from one face to another in the group. “I was thinking of what Muriel said about Leslie hurrying away from the campus as soon as her classes were over. As good Travelers we couldn’t let her do that. If she comes back to the senior class we must stand by her on all occasions. I know a way in which we could help her a great deal. We could ask her to belong to the Travelers.”

“Whu-u-u!” Muriel emitted a prolonged sigh of surprise. A united murmur went up from the others.

“Is that a murmur of objection?” Marjorie asked with a little laugh.

“No,” was the ascending hearty protest.

“You simply stunned us for a second, Beauty,” Leila said reassuringly. “Stop and think if it is not an amazing idea that Leslie Cairns should become a member of the Travelers. Consider all the past troubles she has caused that worthy organization.” She showed her white teeth in an amused smile.

“Do you mean our Nineteen?” Muriel could not keep a faint note of amazement, bordering on disapproval out of her question.

“She couldn’t very well belong to either of the other chapters,” Jerry pointed out. “The only members of last year’s Travelers at Hamilton to be here this year will be Phil Moore and Barbara Severn. Oh, yes. Anna Towne is coming back to teach English Literature. The new Travelers were all chosen before college closed last June, weren’t they?” She turned inquiringly to Marjorie.

“Yes. The only Travelers’ chapter Leslie could very well belong to would be ours. Of course all this is only tentative. If Prexy declines to do anything for Leslie it would be of no use to ask her to join the Travelers.”

“The Board would have to give consent as well as Prexy to her coming back,” Vera interposed.

“Yes, but I dare say the Board members would if President Matthews recommended another trial for her,” Marjorie answered.

“Did you ever hear of an ex-Hamilton student being permitted to return to Hamilton again?” Ronny asked dubiously.

“No, I never have. Perhaps this will be the first case of the kind on the Hamilton records,” Marjorie replied brightly. “I wish you girls would tell me exactly the way you feel about helping Leslie Cairns if she should come back to college.”

“Just the way you do, I hope,” Vera made loyal return.

“It is a fine diversion you are providing for my old age,” was Leila’s mock-enthusiastic response. “But I can stand it, if you can, Beauty.”

“Yours truly.” Muriel thus pledged her devotion. “Doris would be glad of it. She really cares a good deal for Leslie Cairns.”

“You should have more faith in your pals,” Ronny rebuked with simulated severity. “When have we ever gone back on you?”

“I wish there was something I could say to President Matthews that would help,” was Lucy’s regretful cry.

“Is it necessary for me to say, Bean, dear Bean, that I will never desert you?” Jerry contributed reproachfully.

“You are darling old dears.” Marjorie beamed warmest affection on the group of white-clad girls who had just sworn fealty afresh to her standard.

“And you are the same beautiful Beauty that you were five years ago when you walked into Baretti’s one fine September evening and began the conquest of Leslie Cairns which has ended in her unconditional surrender.” Leila was looking a world of affectionate admiration at Marjorie. “Did I not say to you then, Midget, that Beauty had arrived on the campus, and that great doings would come to pass?”

“You surely did say it, and that is at least one of your prophesies which has come true,” Vera made ready response.

“Nonsense. It was not I. It was my faithful Beanstalks. What could I have done for democracy without them? You are the same splendid Leila Harper, who worked like mad to make things come right on the campus and then wouldn’t believe she’d done anything worth while. You see I can say as much about you as you said about me,” Marjorie triumphantly retaliated. “Who was it—.”

“Never mind who it was,” Leila cut in hastily. “Let us talk of the campus. It is a beautiful piece of ground. Is it not?” She inquired of Marjorie with polite affability. “Have I not heard you say you admire it?”

“I wish I could see it from my windows at Hamilton Arms,” Marjorie said half wistfully, though she smiled at Leila’s ridiculous air and questions. “I do miss you girls and the Hall and the campus dreadfully, much as I love the Arms. It was fine, you know, to be right in the middle of the campus, as it were. I shan’t settle down again at the biography much before the first of November. As soon as Robin comes back, Page and Dean will have to get busy in the show business again.”

“Robin ought to be here by this time. We received a letter from her just before we sailed for home in which she wrote that she was coming back to Hamilton as early as the first of September.” Vera gave out this news as she hospitably replenished the glasses from the case of ginger ale on the floor.

“She has probably waited for Phil, and Phil may have been delayed by an influx of visiting relatives,” was Marjorie’s guess. “The Moores are the most hospitable of southerners Robin says.”

“It will be a week before the campus begins to be inhabited,” Ronny predicted. “Then the campus dwellers will arrive in numbers. Did you and Vera see Doris Monroe while you were abroad, Leila? Of course you had her Paris address.”

“We spent three days with her in Paris. She was with an aunt in a cunning little apartment in the Rue de Rivoli. Her father and his party of explorers have unearthed a buried city in Peru. He will not return to France for another year.” Vera went on to relate the details of their visit to Doris Monroe. She ended with: “Doris must be on the way across the Atlantic now. She was intending to sail for the United States the first of September.”

“What news from the Bertramites?” asked Muriel.

“None,” replied Leila. “That means you may expect them to come breezing back to Hamilton any day. Kathie and Lillian will be here on next Friday evening, according to Kathie’s letter. And now are you not glad that I would tell you nothing about the campus news last night?” Leila viewed her friends with indulgently twinkling eyes.

On the previous evening she had laughingly refused to give out a word of information concerning campus matters. “If Midget and I were to tell you all the news tonight we should have nothing to entertain you with at the Hall tomorrow,” she had argued.

Leila’s good-humored inquiry evoked a buzz of laughing rejoinders. “I am so kind,” she continued, “I will keep on giving you the news. Besides you girls and ourselves there are only four other students back at the Hall; Miss Peters and Miss Finch, those two nice freshies who had 14 last year, and Miss Keller and Miss Ryan, the two sophs who roomed next to Miss Peyton and Miss Carter. They are sophs and juniors now, but their hats will continue to fit their heads, I believe. Let me see. Midget and I have only half unpacked our trunks. We have done a great deal of visiting at the Arms, and no work.”

“Tomorrow we are going to clean house and unpack and buy some plates at the ten cent store. Lead really useful lives, you know,” Vera announced with joking energy.

“Midget is that ambitious!” Leila became colloquially Celtic.

Vera’s light announcement brought forth plenty of similar jesting resolves from the others. With conversation flowing in a purely personal channel Leslie Cairns’ name was not mentioned again. Having pledged their word to do all they could to help her six of the reunited Travelers were only too well content to allow the subject to drop. They had not yet come to the stage of regarding Leslie from Marjorie’s great-spirited viewpoint.

Of them all Vera was the nearest to Marjorie in tolerance. She was willing to help Leslie for Leslie’s sake; not because of her regard for Marjorie. With the others it was solely on Marjorie’s account that they had agreed to stand by Leslie, should future need of their support arise. Jerry and Ronny, the only ones besides Marjorie who knew of Leslie’s plan for Leila, had at heart not yet entirely forgiven Leslie for past offenses against Marjorie. Muriel Harding would probably never cherish any degree of liking for Leslie, no matter how well she might do in future. Muriel had a peculiarly obdurate side of character in spite of her natural sunnyness of disposition.

As for Leila, only Leila herself knew how greatly she still detested Leslie Cairns. Though she had been first to credit Leslie for her courage in seeking President Matthews, even this incident had not altered in the slightest degree her basic dislike for the financier’s once lawless daughter. Her secret aversion for Leslie had not died with the knowledge of the other girl’s change of heart.

Once before Leila had found occasion to admire Leslie’s moral courage, tardily as it had shown itself. This was on the day in spring when she and Marjorie had encountered Leslie Cairns on the road to Orchard Inn and the latter had halted their car to make brave confession to Marjorie. In spite of it Leila had not warmed toward the penitent then. Nor had this latest report of Leslie’s courage stirred in Leila any real sympathy. Leila would not have admitted such an attitude of mind, even to Vera. For Marjorie’s sake she was resolved to hide her dislike for Leslie so securely that no one should even suspect her of it.

CHAPTER IX.
 
A MOMENTOUS ERRAND

“How do I look, Jeremiah? Very grave and serious, I hope.” Marjorie walked sedately to the center of the spacious sitting room which was a part of hers and Jerry’s luxurious quarters at Hamilton Arms. She paused, casting an interrogative glance at Jerry, who was sitting on the edge of a chair interestingly following Marjorie’s every movement.

“You don’t look half as solemn as you think you feel,” was Jerry’s opinion delivered with a faint chuckle.

“How discouraging.” Marjorie stopped before the long plate glass wall mirror for a last critical inspection. She thought she made a really unobtrusive appearance in her plain dark blue faille gown and small blue faille hat.

“You might better wear your new jade afternoon frock with the black fur bands,” Jerry grumbled critically. “The world is yours in that rig.”

“You’re a fond goose, Jeremiah. It has to be a case of ‘I won’t speak of myself’ today. I wish to eliminate Marjorie Dean from the situation as thoroughly as I can. I wish Prexy’s interest to be all for Leslie. The color of my new dress might interfere with his thought processes. This is strictly a matter of psychology, you know,” she declared gaily.

“All right, Bean. You win. You look almost as beautiful as ever, if not more so. True beauty cannot be hidden.” Jerry rose in a declamatory attitude, one arm raised stiffly. “It peereth forth from even the humblest of blue faille—”

“Stop it this instant.” Marjorie forgot sedateness and rushed upon Jerry, open-armed. Jerry threw up both arms and accidentally knocked Marjorie’s hat off. “Now see what you’ve done.” Laughing, Marjorie straightened a dent in her little blue hat and went over to the mirror to readjust it. “You’ve completely chased away my seriousness, Jeremiah Macy.”

“A good thing. Don’t worry about the way you ought to approach Prexy. Whatever you say to him will be the best thing that could possibly be said for Leslie.” This time it was Jerry who turned momentarily serious.

“I hope so.” Marjorie gave a quick, longing sigh. “Now I must be on my way. Lucy said Prexy would surely be at the house after four today. It’s a quarter to four now. I’ll meet you at Wayland Hall at five o’clock. Coming down stairs with me?”

“No. I’ve a letter to write. I must start it this minute. It’s to Hal. Any messages,” she called slyly. Marjorie was at the door.

“Not any.” Marjorie laughed and blushed charmingly. “Good-bye, Jeremiah. See you later.” She tripped down the broad staircase and into the library where Miss Susanna Hamilton sat at the long mahogany table busily occupied with sorting the loose yellow leaves of an old book.

“So you are off on the momentous errand, are you, child?” she greeted, her eyes still on her dilettante task. She laid down the leaf in her hand and turned her keen dark eyes smilingly upon Marjorie. “What a plain little dress! But I like it. It’s suitable to the errand on which you are going. Marvelous Manager with no frills or furbelows.”

“If I succeed with Prexy this afternoon I shall feel that I can lay claim to that ridiculous title for just once.” Marjorie came over to Miss Hamilton. She bent and kissed the old lady’s pink cheek. “Please don’t be lonely without us at dinner tonight, Goldendede,” she said. “Remember we’ll all be here tomorrow night for a regular Travelers’ reunion.”

“Run along, my dear. I’ll be glad to be rid of both you and Jerry this evening,” chuckled Miss Susanna. “Think what an opportunity I shall have to collate this book, uninterrupted.”

“Good-bye.” Marjorie started for the door in pretended offense. Half way across the library she paused, looking back and laughing.

“Wait a minute, Marjorie. Try not to feel downcast if President Matthews should be brusque with you in regard to Leslie,” was the older woman’s advice. “He is broader-minded than most presidents of colleges that I have known. And I have known a good many of them. They are all alike in their deep disapproval of particularly lawless students. Leslie’s case seems very doubtful to me. I don’t mean to be discouraging. I know how strongly prejudiced such men are against flagrant student offenders.”

“I understand.” Marjorie gave a little comprehending nod. She came back and kissed Miss Susanna again, saying: “Wish me good fortune, Goldendede. I’m going on a quick hike to a trying engagement.”

“Good luck attend you, Lieutenant Dean.” Miss Susanna watched the trim little figure across the room and through the open door.

Marjorie left the Arms and sped lightly down the wide stone walk to the gates. She was soon swinging along with her free buoyant stride through picturesque Hamilton Estates and toward the campus. For a little the tender beauty of the early September day caused her to forget her errand in fervent Nature worship. Overhead the sun’s golden gleams filtered down from skies of palest blue between snatches of drifting, snowy clouds. The sweeping lawns and gardens of the Estates were bright with scarlet sage, dahlias and early autumn flowers. Along the sides of the pike and in the fields grew goldenrod, daisies and purple asters in Nature’s own profusion. Here and there the foliage of a tree had been touched by magic fingers and turned from green to red and gold.

Marjorie greeted the emerald-hued campus with a fond smile and a soft: “You’re as splendid as ever, old friend.” She entered the east gates and followed the drive for a little way, then left it to travel straight across the broad green sweep toward President Matthews’ house which was situated at the extreme west side of the campus.

It was now almost a week since the initial band of Travelers had gathered at the Hall and Marjorie had then announced her determination to go to President Matthews in behalf of Leslie Cairns. She had been obliged to delay her call upon the President for the very good reason that he had not returned to Hamilton campus from the sea shore until Tuesday of that week. It was now Thursday. The next day, Friday, would see the return of Katherine Langly and Lillian Wenderblatt to the campus. There was to be a jolly celebration at the Arms on Friday evening in honor of them. In view of happiness so near at hand Marjorie was desirous of immediately putting Leslie’s case before the President and having the self-appointed interview with “Prexy” off her mind.

As she crossed the broad green, endeared by long familiarity to her feet, her gaze wandered from one to another of the campus houses. Her eyes brightened to see three girls seated on the steps of Craig Hall. At Acasia House a slim girl shape stood on the top step of the front veranda, waving an arm at an expressman coming up the walk with a heavy-looking trunk. In front of Silverton Hall three girls were emerging from a taxicab. Marjorie stopped to stare at them. No; they were not Phyllis Moore, Barbara Severn and Robin Page. She was not sure of their identity. She experienced a glad sense of happiness at the thought that the campus dwellers were gathering home again. The end of another week and Hamilton Campus would have again become its old delightful center of activity.

As she turned in at the gateway of the ornamental hedge which surrounded the president’s home, Marjorie’s buoyant interest in the campus receded and was replaced by the graver import of her errand. She hoped she would find the president alone. Perhaps Lucy would be there. Lucy had been working for him for the past two days.

“I shan’t mind if Lucy is there,” Marjorie was thinking as she neared the steps. Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast. She had a strong inclination to turn and run away. She did not dread the coming interview. What she did dread was the probable event of defeat.