"Come in, Clarisse," Jane interrupted. "I have not much time before cla.s.s, but I shall be glad to help you if I can."

"Oh, you surely can. h.e.l.lo, Nellie!" to Helen. "Where ever have you been? Sick?"

"Just nerves," a.s.sisted Jane, as Helen smiled a "non vult" to the charge. "Helen has been working very hard with her violin, and sometimes out of doors at that. Strange we have so little understanding of the artistic temperament."

"Oh, yes-of course," faltered Clarisse, and her manner gave clue to Jane that the "arbitration" requested might have something to do with Helen.

"I knew you must be sick, Nell," purred the pretty one, "and I insisted you should not be put out until we had heard your side."

"Put out?" asked Helen, awakening at last to a sign of interest.

"Yes, you know you have not been to drill for days, and we have to have the show before the sophs get ahead of us. They always have their show right in the glories of Hallowe'en, and the witches get all played out--"

"And tangled up in their broom sticks, until the very best hair dressers among us cannot untangle the wigs," finished Jane. "You are perfectly right, Clarisse. You youngsters have been working hard at your show for weeks, and you cannot allow the sophs to get the barn first. What's the real difficulty?"

Clarisse squatted down on the big floor cus.h.i.+on, her skirt just touching her knees by the scantest rim. She doubled her feet backward in regular style of the j.a.p-Turk-Indian, etc. Pencil threatening her red lips with poisonous smudges and "eyes right" as her squad would have described it, the pretty one attempted to impart to Jane information certainly not intended for Helen's ears. Seeing her confusion Jane mercifully attempted to relieve it.

"Suppose you rest this afternoon, Helen," she said. "I shall take your excuse in, if you wish."

"Oh, thank you, but I am sure I feel all right now," replied Helen, taking the cue signalling her departure. "I always feel refreshed when I have talked with my very good friend."

"That's nice of you, dear," Jane accepted, opening the door. "Run in again after two thirty. I shall be at leisure and glad to see you again. By that time you will know exactly how you feel about taking a furlough."

The military term was one with which the Polish girl was entirely familiar, and she guessed rightly that Jane had used it to convey the idea of a possible "furlough" from cla.s.s work. Helen was still very shaky, still far from being convinced that her persecutors would be silenced with their insidious gossip, and until all this could be satisfactorily straightened out, Helen might find it necessary to remain away from the general a.s.semblages.

Smiling, she withdrew. Then Clarissa untwined her ankles and a.s.sumed the aggressive.

"Oh, Jane-Miss Allen!"

"Jane is better, Clara. What can I do for the prettiest little fres.h.i.+e of them all?"

"Now don't tease, please," and blue eyes vied with dimples as star attractions. "I am so excited--"

"I see you are!"

"Miss Allen!" quite severely. "Are you really laughing at me?"

"Why, Clara, my dear, cannot an old friend tease just a little bit to show her love for the Babes? You know, Clara, sometimes I am so sorry I have to grow up."

Rea.s.sured, and again smiling, Clarisse took on still another att.i.tude, determined to emphatically emphasize the seriousness of her mission.

She could not guess that Jane's apparent joking had a motive, if not sinister, then deeply planned. Jane was stalling. She was using up time to kill time, and she played against time for time. All of which college girls are supposed to understand as within the ethics of school girl diplomacy.

"Well, Janie, it is this way," again attempted the persistent freshman.

"We have our show all planned. It is entirely original-we wrote every word of it and Nellie composed the music. Did you know that?"

"No, I did not!" admitted Jane, now showing interest.

"Of course you didn't. It was all a deep secret. But just when we were ready to drop the girls down the chimney-oh, that was another secret--"

"Trust me. I shall never disclose the dark, dire secret," Jane a.s.sured her.

"No, I am sure you will not. You see, the story called for two girls to come down the barn chimney--"

"Barn swallows," suggested Jane.

"No, chimney sweeps," corrected Clarisse. "The story was laid in London, and we had Mad Madge of Moscow. Of course that was Nellie because she had to play the violin-just fiddle away all the time." Jane was beginning to see light. Mad Madge for Helen in the face of the perfidious gossip declaring her really mad!

"It all went perfectly beautiful," Clarisse declared, "until some girls said-well, they said it was so easy for Nellie to act the mad part she must be-what the other girls said she was." Little Clarisse was too childlike, and too well bred to bolt out with the accusation that Helen had been called mad. But Jane sensed the story as clearly as if it had been actually screened before her eyes. Yes, in all Helen's school affairs, this gossip was now injecting its poison. Even so absurd a story gained credence with action like rolling a s...o...b..ll, growing as it turns.

"But why let such foolish talk influence you?" asked Jane.

"Oh, we didn't! Indeed we didn't!" This with wide-eyed consternation.

"But the trouble was with the tickets. When we went to the campus house all along the other side not a girl would accept a ticket--"

"Don't you think that was just a case of boycott?" suggested Jane.

"Well, maybe so. But we had to have the Flip-Flops. You know we call those girls who are always changing quarters the Flip-Flops. Isn't that a dreadful name? But d.i.c.key Ripple stuck it on."

"They are changeable, to say the least, and they do stunts very like the Flip-Flop," Jane agreed, "still it is not a pretty t.i.tle to sail under."

"No, I realize that," apologized the gullible Clarisse, "and I didn't mean to use the horrid word again. First thing we know it will slip out in faculty hearing, then we will be disciplined. Well, anyway, where was I at?"

"At distributing your invitations. You said they were refused. On what grounds, Clara?"

"First, because we had Nellie in the cast, and second, because they said she might get-flighty and land knows only what. I am sure they could not have meant she might get dangerous."

Rare sense for a freshman, Jane decided. All the other flings at helpless little Helen could not include that of being "dangerous at large." Jane considered for a moment. Clarisse waited, eager and hopeful.

"And just what was it you wanted me to do?" asked Jane finally.

"Why, to call a meeting, and announce our play, and put Helen down as a special attraction. Her violin is wonderful, and you know it is the very first time she has consented to play in public."

Clarisse was quite breathless now, and Jane fell back bewildered. After all, the little girls demanded nothing extraordinary, but simple as the request was, Jane could not promise to grant it.

"I fear Helen would not like that," she replied carefully. "You know artists are very queer about any publicity previous to their grand debut. And Helen has such a wonderful concert planned for her real coming out," said Jane.

"Oh, but just here in school couldn't matter. Really, Miss Allen, we will be completely lost if you do not a.s.sist us," and again the dimples melted into little leaks, that threatened to overflow at the mouth ends.

"All right, dear. I will see if I can arrange it," a.s.sented Jane, "but you know I have to consult the executive committee about calling a meeting. We might do it more simply, and more effectively, some other way. At any rate, you may count on us. We won't see our little freshman outcla.s.sed by such underhand methods."

"That's just it. Why don't you tell Mrs. Weatherbee?"

"Oh, it seems too silly! And besides you recall our pledge not to carry tales to the faculty! You wouldn't have your president be the first to break the very rule she was most insistent upon adopting?"

"Oh, no, that's so," agreed Clarisse. "I remember now, you did say we were not to carry tales. Very well, I am satisfied. I think, as a committee of one I have been quite a success, thanks to our president,"

and she made a perky bow.