"Where was I? I was in bad, I'll say. What? Well, I guess. I got a second summons this A. M. I couldn't side-step it. His high and mightiness had the whole story of the accident from some tattle-tale. He wouldn't give me a chance to say a word hardly. One more break in the speeding line and our cars go home for good. He certainly laid down the law to me. I've a mind to tell you something else." Leslie paused before the door of her room, hand on the k.n.o.b.

"What is it? You know I never tell tales, Les." Natalie eyed the other girl reproachfully. "That's more than you can say of your other pals."

"You are right about that, Nat," Leslie conceded. She motioned Natalie into the room and closed the door. "Laura says she knows who told Doctor Matthews. I'm to meet her tonight. Keep that dark. I don't want a person besides you to know it. I'm to meet her behind that clump of lilac bushes the other side of Baretti's. You know; where that old house was torn down."

Natalie nodded. She was inwardly jubilant at having thus been given Leslie's confidence. It was quite like old times. "Have you any idea who told?" she questioned, trying to hide her gratification under an air of calm interest.

"No. I'm positive it wasn't Langly. She gave me her word that she would drop the whole thing. A goody-goody dig like her would not break it.

I'll tell you as soon as I come back. Come here at ten. I shall not be later than ten-fifteen. I intend to put up a 'Busy' sign tonight so as to keep the girls out of here before I start. They know better than to try to get by it, too."

At precisely twenty minutes to nine that evening Leslie took the "Busy"

placard from her door and locking it proceeded to the rendezvous. She had put on a long dark motor coat and a black velour sports hat. The instant she had left the Hall's premises behind her she pulled the hat low over her face and broke into a run. An expert tennis player, she was swift and nimble of foot. Only once she paused, stepping behind a thicket of rhododendron bushes until a party of girls returning from town pa.s.sed by. Once off the campus, she kept to the darker side of the road and was soon at the designated spot.

Her brisk run had brought her to the meeting place ahead of time. It was five minutes before the faint sound of a footfall among the fallen leaves rewarded her small stock of patience. Leslie's hand sought the pocket of her coat. A tiny stream of white light outlined the figure now very close to her. Instantly she snapped off the light with a soft e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of satisfaction.

"You should not have turned that light on me," objected the other dark figure rather pettishly. "We might be seen from the road."

"Not a soul pa.s.sing," Leslie a.s.sured. "I was not going to take chances of hailing the wrong party."

"Please remember that I have to be even more careful than you. No one must ever be allowed to suspect that we know each other." Laura Sayres spoke with cool precision.

"Is that what you came all the way here to tell me?" Leslie gave a short laugh. It announced that she was on the verge of being unpleasant.

"Of course it isn't." Laura prudently retreated from her lofty stand.

While she enjoyed grumbling, she was too cowardly at heart to venture to do more. "I couldn't say a word over the 'phone today. I will tell you now and quickly for I have a long walk home and the road is quite lonely in places."

"Sorry I couldn't bring my car, but I didn't dare," carelessly apologized Leslie. She divined that Laura was somewhat peeved because she had not.

"Oh, it doesn't matter. Now I don't know just how much this information will be worth to you--" Miss Sayres paused. "I can only--"

"Give it to me and I'll do the square thing by you." Leslie frowned in the darkness.

"Oh, I don't mean in money," weakly defended Miss Sayres. "I mean that it's circ.u.mstantial. You must form your own opinion from what I tell you."

"I understand." Leslie quite understood that despite the secretary's protest she was not above being mercenary. "Go ahead."

"Last Tuesday afternoon about five o'clock I was just starting for home from Doctor Matthews' house, when who should come marching up the walk but Miss Dean," related Laura. "I wondered what brought her there. As soon as the maid let her in I turned and went back. I had made up my mind to wait around until she came out. I have a key to the front door now. One day when college first opened the doctor sent me over to the house for some papers he needed. No one was at home and I had to go back to Hamilton Hall without them. He had a key made for me right after that. You see I occupy a position of trust. No wonder I have to be careful."

"I see; but what about Miss Dean?" Leslie promptly switched the secretary back to her original subject.

"I am coming to that. I decided after I got as far as the veranda to let myself into the house. I supposed Miss Dean had come to see the doctor.

The minute I stepped inside I heard voices. The door of the office was open just a little. I did not dare stand in the hall so I slipped into the living room. It is directly opposite the office. I couldn't understand a word Miss Dean said, but I heard the doctor say he was incensed at the behavior of someone, and that they would have to come before the Board. Then he said that if someone, I couldn't find out who, refused to do something or other, she would have to leave college. It remained for him to write her.

"I heard Miss Dean say very plainly: 'It is a case of the innocent having to suffer with the guilty.' They talked a little more, but both lowered their voices. I heard the doctor's chair turn and knew he was going to get up from it. I made the quickest move I ever made and slid out the door. I had left it a little open. Sure enough, in a minute or two Miss Dean came out of the house and went away."

"I think that's pretty good proof against the foxy little wretch."

Leslie's voice was thick with wrath. She was still smarting from the morning's humiliation. "I wish I could tell you how I hate that little sneak. I'll get back at her, believe me."

"I certainly would, if I were you. Just to be on the safe side I went into the house and stopped at the office door. I said, 'If you have nothing more for me to do I will go now, Doctor Matthews.' I thought perhaps he would ask me to write the letter he had spoken of. Not he. He said: 'No, thank you, Miss Sayres. You need not have waited.' So I had no excuse to stay."

"That's another proof. The letter he sent me was penned. You have picked the culprit, all right enough. I have an idea I know how to deal with her." Leslie threatened in an excess of spite. "One thing more and then we must beat it. Do you believe that Remson affair will ever leak out?

I shiver every time I think of it. That was a bold stroke."

"It doesn't worry me. I know enough about Miss Remson to know she will keep far away from Doctor Matthews after the letter she received from him. The one he received from her, after she had been over to see him, made him think she had had a heart-to-heart talk with you girls and you'd all promised to do differently. He wouldn't interfere after that.

Unless they should happen to meet, which isn't likely, matters will stay as they are. I destroyed the letter supposed to be from Miss Remson. The doctor told me to file it, but if he ever asked for it I would pretend not to be able to find it. He wouldn't remember what she wrote. While I am his secretary I can manage the affair. As time pa.s.ses it will be forgotten. Doctor Matthews would not mention it if he happened to meet Miss Remson. That's not his way."

"Glad to hear it. It lifts a weight from my mind. I've only one more year at Hamilton after this. My father expects me to be graduated with honor. He would never forgive me if I were to be expelled from Hamilton at this late date." Leslie was moved out of her usual indifferent pose.

Fear of exposure gripped her hard at times.

"Better let this Miss Dean alone," was Laura's succinct advise. "I hear she is very popular on the campus. She looks independent enough to take up for herself. Be careful she doesn't turn the tables on you as she did last spring."

"Not this time. She won't like my methods, but she won't be able to prove that they are mine. In fact she won't know where to place the blame."

CHAPTER XVI.

FAIR PLAY AND NO FAVORS.

Phyllis Moore accepted her defeat with the easy grace which was hers.

Her freshman supporters were not so ready to give in. They gave up the ghost with marked displeasure. Forty-five members of the cla.s.s had voted for her. They had shown open and hearty disapproval of Elizabeth Walbert. The other three officers were more to their liking, but the Sans' electioneering had left a rift in the freshman lute which promised plenty of discord later on. Though every member of the cla.s.s had attended the picnic as a matter of courtesy, the finer element had been privately weary of the affair before the afternoon was over. The Sans'

efforts to mould the freshmen to their views merely resulted in amalgamating stray groups to one solid formation. A fact they were presently to discover.

The election of officers had occurred much later than was the rule. The excitement attendant upon it had hardly died out before the freshman frolic loomed large on their horizon. With the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s almost entirely free from sn.o.bbish influences, the dance promised to be an occasion of undiluted enjoyment. The humbler freshmen off the campus were the first to receive invitations from the sophs. Those sophs who still clung to the Sans were only a handful. The freshies of Elizabeth Walbert's faction found that the majority of them would be without special escort unless the juniors or seniors came to their rescue.

Rallied to duty by Alida Burton and Lola Elster, the Sans magnanimously stepped into the breach. They, in turn, brought certain of their junior and senior allies to the aid of the escortless. It was a sore point, however, among a number of freshmen who had voted for Miss Walbert that the soph.o.m.ores had pa.s.sed them by for mere off-the-campus students. It served as a quiet lesson by which a few of them afterward profited.

Eager to regain her lost laurels, Natalie Weyman was insistent that Lola and Alida should ask the entertainment committee to give another Beauty contest.

"What do you take me for?" was Lola's derisive reply when Natalie asked her for the third time to try to bring the contest about. "I'd just as soon ask Prexy Matthews to dye his hair pink as to ask those snippies to give a Beauty parade. Kiss yourself good-bye, Nat. You didn't win it last year. Nuff said."

Whereupon Natalie took pains to confide to anyone who would listen to her that she thought Lola Elster the rudest, slangiest person she had ever had the misfortune to meet.

Marjorie could not recall a festivity for which she had worked hard beforehand and enjoyed more than the preparation for the freshman hop.

Going to the woods to gather the spicy, fragrant pine boughs and gorgeous armfuls of autumn leaves and scarlet mountain ash berries for decorations was purest pleasure. No less did she revel in the hours spent in beautifying the gymnasium in honor of the baby cla.s.s. Everyone concerned in the labor was so good-natured and jolly that an atmosphere of harmony permeated the big room and hovered over it on the night of the frolic.

Even the Sans appeared to imbibe a little of that genial atmosphere and behaved at the frolic with less arrogance than was their wont when appearing socially. Leslie Cairns alone of them flatly refused to be present. She wheedled Joan Myers into escorting Elizabeth Walbert to the dance and remained in her room in a magnificent fit of sulks. She was too greatly inflamed against Marjorie to endure going where she would be in close touch with her for an evening. She therefore amused herself that evening in planning the cherished move she intended to make against Marjorie.

"Perhaps I ought not say it, but I had a good deal better time tonight than at the frolic last year," Muriel confided to her chums between yawns. Discipline being lax they had gathered in Ronny's and Lucy's room after the dance for a cup of hot chocolate and sweet crackers.

"I know I had," emphasized Marjorie. "Everyone seemed to go in for a good time tonight."

"The Sans unbent a little, didn't they?" commented Jerry. "That was because their boss stayed away. Those girls might become civilized in time without Leslie Cairns on the job."

"They were a little more gracious," agreed Ronny. "I don't know how the rest of you feel about it. I am glad the frolic is over. I am tired. We have been stirred up ever since we came back to college. First over Miss Remson's trouble. Next came the Sans' move to grab all the freshmen.

Then Kathie's accident, and after that the commotion over the freshie election. We were all keyed up to quite a pitch over that on account of Phil. Now the dance is over. What next? Nothing, I fondly hope. I am going to lead the student life, provided I am allowed to do it."