Marjorie Dean College Junior Part 11

"I don't believe he would ever go near Doctor Matthews. Still _you_ couldn't afford to risk being reported," Elizabeth had retorted with special emphasis on the "you."

To this Leslie had vouchsafed no reply. She had merely stared at her companion in a most disconcerting fashion and walked off and left her.

She was thoroughly nettled with Elizabeth for her lack of grat.i.tude.

Natalie was right about her it seemed. She was also wondering where the ungrateful soph.o.m.ore had obtained certain information which she apparently possessed. No one beyond her seven intimates among the Sans knew that she had been reprimanded by President Matthews for the accident to Katherine Langly. To the other members of the club she had intimated that she had adjusted the matter quietly with Katherine.

That evening, while Jerry was recounting to her chums what she and Helen had heard of the altercation between the cab driver and the two girls, Leslie was having a confidential talk with Natalie Weyman. She had gone straight from the garage to her room, eaten dinner at the Hall and asked Natalie to come to her room after dinner.

"Nat, you are right about Bess. She is no good," Leslie began, dropping into a chair opposite that of her friend. Briefly narrating the happening of the afternoon, she repeated the remark Elizabeth had made to her at the garage. "What would you draw from that?" she asked.

"Someone has been talking." Natalie compressed her lips in a tight line.

"You are sure you never told her yourself?"

"_Positively, no._ I have never babbled my private affairs to Bess, or Lola either. Only the old crowd were told the facts of that trouble. We have a traitor in the camp and _I know who it is_." Leslie's eyes narrowed with sinister significance. "It's Dulcie. I am going to find out quietly what all she has been saying about me and to whom she has been saying it. I'm sure she told Bess about the summons. That isn't so serious. I could overlook that, although I don't like it. It is the other things she may have told. That's what worries me. She and I have been on the outs since that Valentine masquerade last year. She hardly ever comes to my room. I am not sorry. I never got along well with Dulcie. I never trusted her."

"Dulcie ought to know better than tell all she knows to that Walbert creature," Natalie made indignant return. "Why, Les, suppose she were foolish enough to tell her about that high tribunal stunt?" Natalie drew a sharp breath of consternation. "Dulcie knows the rights of the Remson mix-up, too."

"Dulcie knows too much. So do some of the other girls. If I had it to do over again, I would not tell anyone but you how I put over a stunt. Why did we haze Bean? Simply because she reported me to Matthews after Langly had agreed to drop it. The girls were all in on the hazing, so not one of them would be safe if they told it."

"The Remson affair would do you the most harm if it got out," Natalie said decidedly. "It is contemptible in Dulcie to gossip about you after all the favors you have done her. You've lent her money over and over again. You know she never pays it back if she can slide out of it."

Leslie made an indifferent gesture of a.s.sent. "She owes me over two hundred dollars now. I lent it to her during her freshie year. She paid up what she borrowed of me last year, but she never said a word about the other. Dulcie has _nerve_, Nat; pure, unadulterated _nerve_. She can't bear me lately because I run the Sans to suit myself. I always ran the club and she knows that. Last year she decided that she would like to run it herself. I sat down on her every time she tried it. She deliberately left the back door of that house unlocked the night we hazed Bean. I told her to see to it. She was edgeways at me. She never went near the door. You know what happened."

"Dulcie will have to be told a few plain truths." Natalie frowned displeased anxiety. The news of Dulcie's defection was rather alarming.

"She is going to hear them from me, but not yet. I shall catch her dead to rights before I have things out with her. I've made up my mind just how I am going to do it, provided the rest of the Sans stand by me. It will be to their interest to do so. I mean, with their support, I can give her precisely what she deserves."

"I'll stand by you. Joan will, too. She is down on Dulcie for some reason or other. They haven't been on speaking terms for a week. I asked Joan what the trouble was between them. She said Dulcie made her weary and she didn't care whether she ever spoke to her again or not. That was all I could get out of her."

"Hm-m!" Leslie looked interested. "I shall find out tomorrow what Joan has against her. If Dulcie hasn't gabbed anything worse to Bess, and I presume a few others, than the news that I received a summons from his high and cranky mightiness, I will let her off with my candid opinion of her. If she has been a busy little news distributor of secret matters, she will rue it. I'll have no traitors among the Sans."

CHAPTER XIII-WELL MATCHED

Leslie's first crafty move toward determining Dulcie Vale's treachery was in the direction of Elizabeth Walbert. The latter had promised to return the next week the twenty-five dollars Leslie had expended in her behalf. Leslie planned to wait until she did so before making an attempt to discover how many of the Sans' secrets Elizabeth knew. She was certain that Elizabeth would return the loan promptly, as she received a large allowance from home and as much more as she chose to demand.

To seek the self-satisfied soph.o.m.ore's society was not what Leslie proposed to do. She intended matters should be the other way around. She could then take Elizabeth completely off her guard and find out more easily what Dulcie had imparted to her.

Elizabeth also had views of her own regarding Leslie. The latter had not been nearly so friendly with her since college had opened as she had been during the previous year. Leslie had renewed her old comradeship with Natalie Weyman, whom Elizabeth detested and stood a little in fear of. Natalie had never been friendly with her. She had always held herself aloof. Whenever they chanced to meet she treated Elizabeth as a mere acquaintance. It was galling to the ambitious, self-seeking soph.o.m.ore, but she loftily ignored Natalie's frigidity. She had complained of it once to Leslie and been soundly snubbed for her pains.

"You needn't expect much of Nat. She doesn't like you. That's why she freezes you out. It won't do you any good to tell me about it, for Nat is my particular pal." This had been Leslie's unsympathetic reception of the complaint.

In her heart Elizabeth did not like Leslie. She resented Leslie's domineering ways. This did not deter her from fawning upon the despotic senior. She was depending on Leslie to help her regain a certain popularity which had been hers as a freshman. She had cherished a vain hope that she might be elected to the soph.o.m.ore presidency. To her chagrin she had not even been nominated. Determined to shine on the campus, her thoughts were now turning toward basket ball. She was now anxious to enlist Leslie's services in helping her devise a means of making the soph.o.m.ore team. As a senior Leslie could easily influence the sports committee to favor her. Mae Lowry and Sarah Pierce, both Sans, were on the committee.

It had been rumored that Professor Leonard and the sports committee had disagreed; that the instructor had coolly advised the committee to do as it pleased and dropped all interest in sports for that year. With him out of the reckoning, nothing stood in her way provided Leslie chose to favor her.

Her greatest ambition, however, was to belong to the Sans. She was always privately wishing that one member of the club would drop out.

Leslie had once more told her that the club limit was eighteen members.

If anyone left the club an outside eligible would be chosen to replace the retiring member so as to keep the number of girls at eighteen. She had also tried on the previous June to arrange for a room at Wayland Hall for the ensuing college year. She had been unsuccessful in the attempt.

After leaving Leslie on the occasion of her mishap on Hamilton Highway, she had realized her folly in showing spleen against her companion. She resolved to offset it as speedily as possible. She wrote Leslie a note which remained unanswered. She then telephoned the Hall, but Leslie was out. Her allowance check having arrived, she had an excuse to go to see Leslie. Her afternoon cla.s.ses over, she set out for Wayland Hall one rainy afternoon, hoping the inclement weather had kept Leslie indoors.

Her baby-blue eyes gleamed triumph at the cheering news that Miss Cairns was in. As she ascended the stairs to Leslie's room, which was the largest and most expensive in the house, her curious glances roved everywhere. She wished she could see into the room of every student. Her lips fell into an envious pout as she thought of her own failure to get into the Hall. She would try again in June, on that she was determined.

Coming to the door of Leslie's room, she uttered a m.u.f.fled exclamation of impatience. A large "Busy" sign stared her in the face. She did not turn and go away. Instead her surveying eyes took in the long hall from end to end. Next, she drew close to the door and listened. She could hear no voices from within. Leslie was evidently alone and studying.

With a defiant lifting of her chin Elizabeth rapped on the panel twice and loudly. She listened again and was repaid by the sound of a chair being hastily moved, then approaching footsteps. The door opened with a jerk. Leslie stared at her visitor with no pleasantness.

"I came to return that twenty-five dollars." Elizabeth did not give Leslie a chance to speak first. "I saw the sign on your door. I thought I would knock, anyway. I've been trying to see you for a week to give it to you. Why didn't you answer my note, or didn't you receive it?"

Leslie continued to stare. She was taken aback for an instant by the cool impudence of the other girl. This was in reality the only thing about Elizabeth that Leslie liked. She found the soph.o.m.ore's bold a.s.surance amusing.

"Come in," she drawled, a.s.suming her most indifferent pose. "I intended asking you if you could read. I'll forgive you. I told you there was no hurry about that money."

"What's money to me? Not that much!" Elizabeth snapped her fingers. "I can have all the money I want to spend here. I simply happened to be without it the other day. I won't stay. I see you are really busy writing letters. It goes to show you can write. I thought perhaps you had forgotten how."

Having delivered this thrust she busied herself with her handbag. "Here you are; much obliged." She tendered the money to Leslie. "I must go."

She turned as though to depart.

"Oh, sit down!" Leslie tossed the little wad of bills on the table. "I can finish this letter later. I have to keep that sign on the door when I want to be alone. I'd be mobbed if I did not."

At heart Leslie was distinctly glad to see her caller. She had her part to play on the stage of deceit, however.

"I suppose the Sans are running in and out of your room a good deal,"

Elizabeth returned enviously. "I wish I could live here. It makes me so cross when I think of that Miss Dean and those girls living here and I can't get in. There will be a lot of girls graduated from here in June.

I think I can make it next fall. What's the use, though. You'll be gone.

It is on your account I'd like to be here. I think more of you, Leslie, than of all the rest of the girls put together." Elizabeth simulated wistful regret. She had tried out that particular expression before the mirror until she had perfected it. It was useful on so many occasions.

"Do you truly think as much of me as you say, Bess, or are you simply talking to hear yourself talk?" Leslie carried out admirably a pretense of sudden earnestness.

"Why, _of course_, I care a lot about you, Leslie." Elizabeth adopted a slightly grieved tone. "Think of how _much_ you have done for me."

"Oh, that's all right." Leslie dismissed the reminder with a wave of the hand. "I have a reason for asking you that question. I have one or two other questions to ask you, too. If you are my friend, _and wish to continue to be my friend_, you will answer them."

"I certainly will, if I can," was the glib promise.

"You can," Leslie curtly a.s.sured. "First, who told you about my having received a summons to Matthews' office on account of that accident to Langly last fall?"

"How do you know--" began the soph.o.m.ore, then bit her lip.

"I _know_. There isn't much goes on on the campus that I don't know."

This with intent to intimidate. "I know who told you, for that matter."

"I promised I wouldn't tell. Still, if you say you know who it was, I believe you do." Elizabeth hastily conceded, remembering her own interests. "You won't let on that I told you?"

Leslie shook her head. "Trust me to be discreet," she said.