She had been the first one to reach the front door. Feeling for the key, which was in the lock, she had fumbled it and dropped it on the floor.

As she had stooped to pick it up, she had been knocked to her knees by the onrush of the others. Callously, she had struck right and left for room to get to her feet. The key had remained on the floor. Knowing that she could not secure it until the wild onslaught on the door had stopped, she had tried frantically to make herself heard above the hub-bub. It was of no use.

Presently the panic-stricken Sans had begun to understand her hoa.r.s.ely-shouted words: "Stand still. The key's dropped to the floor."

By that time the wails of the invaders had ceased and their footsteps had died out. An odd silence had suddenly descended upon the Sans. Very meekly they had obeyed Leslie's rude order, "Get out of my way," as she had turned on a small flashlight and located the key. The door opened at last, not a word had been spoken as the dominoed procession filed out into the starry night. Leslie had stepped out first. Stationing herself on the veranda, she had counted them as they pa.s.sed, to be sure none were missing. "Save your talking until you get to the Hall," she had curtly commanded. "Down the street and hustle for the campus. Keep together."

Bruised and sore, the avengers had again obeyed her without much protest. Dulcie Vale had attempted a belligerent remark but had been promptly silenced by: "You had better keep still. You are the person who claimed she locked the back door. If so, how, then, did that mob of freaks get in? I don't believe they had a key."

Leslie had not condescended to speak again until they had reached the Hall. At the foot of the drive she had halted her party and given them further curt orders as to their manner of procedure. Her final instruction had been: "Get ready for the dance, then come to my room.

Wear evening coats. It is too late for dominos now. The unmasking is over long ago. If you're asked any questions simply say we had a dinner engagement before the dance; that we thought it fun to dress in costume but did not care to mask. Now remember, that _goes_."

It was half-past ten o'clock before the entire eighteen gathered in Leslie's room. Both Natalie's and Dulcie's facial disfigurements were such as to prevent their attendance of the dance. Leslie laughed outright at sight of Dulcie. "You _are_ pretty," she jeered. Dulcie's wrath rose, but she swallowed it. She did not care to be taxed further about the trust she had betrayed. Margaret Wayne had twisted her right ankle almost to the point of sprain. Harriet Stephens had a lump on her forehead, caused by a forcible collision with the wall. Eleanor Ray limped slightly from having her toes stepped on. These five declined stoutly to leave the Hall again that night.

"You can't very well go; that's flat," Leslie agreed. "I ought to stay here, too. See that." She turned her back, displaying a large discoloration on one shoulder about two inches above the low-cut bodice of the old gold satin evening gown she wore. She had not troubled herself to dress in costume. "That's what happened to me when you girls knocked me down and tried to walk on me. It is up to me to go over to the gym. I'll wear a gold lace scarf I have. This will hide this bruise.

All of you who look like something had better go with me. I don't know what Bean will do. No matter what she tells or how far she goes, you girls are to deny to the end that you were at that house tonight. No one saw our faces. Who, then is going to say, positively, that she saw us, either at that house or on the campus? If we all say we were _not_ the ones who hazed Bean, _and stick to it_, I defy the whole college to prove it against us."

CHAPTER XXV.

THE BITTERNESS OF DEFEAT.

What "Bean" intended to do in the matter of her recent hazing was a question which worried the Sans considerably during the next few days.

The very fact that they had escaped, thus far, without even having been quizzed by any of the students regarding that fateful evening puzzled them. True, they suspected Marjorie's four chums and Leila and Vera as having been among those who broke up the hazing party. They cherished an erroneous belief, however, that there were at least fifteen or twenty of the invaders.

It was gall and wormwood to those of the Sans who attended the dance in its closing hour to see Marjorie, radiantly pretty, enjoying herself as though she had never been through a trying experience only three hours before. By common consent the rescue party, as well as Marjorie, paid no more attention to the Sans than if they had not been present. The dance had been such an unusually pleasant affair! More than one girl remarked early in the evening to her closest friends that things went along so much better when a certain clique of girls were absent. The Sans' junior cla.s.smates were not pleased at their late attendance of the masquerade.

They criticized the Sans as selfish and lacking in proper cla.s.s spirit.

Thus the Sans fashioned a new rod that night for their backs of which they were destined later to feel the sting.

The day following the masquerade the soph.o.m.ore team sent the junior team an acceptance of their challenge. This mystified the Sans five even more. Under the circ.u.mstances they had expected and even hoped their challenge would be declined. A refusal on the part of the soph.o.m.ore team to play them would give them an opportunity to intimate that their opponents were afraid to meet them for fear of being beaten. Deep in their hearts the Sans five were the real cowards. They dreaded playing against Marjorie and Muriel in particular. As Leslie gloomily said to Natalie, "Bean and that Harding snip will certainly get back at you if they can. I imagine Robina Page was one of that crowd who gave us the run."

Leslie had been terribly out of sorts since the failure of her plot. She did not know where she stood at Hamilton as regarded safety. She was highly disgruntled by the lack of cordiality shown her and her chums by many students whom she had considered friendly to her. It was being forced upon her, little by little, that the Sans were losing ground.

They had sworn to win back their lost power of the previous year. They had not done this. Now the game with the soph.o.m.ores must be played and she was not in the mood to coach her team, nor were they in the mood to play. She doubted if they would dare make use of "the soft talk." The freshman team had expressed themselves quite openly on that subject about the campus. When taxed with it once or twice by juniors who had learned of it and deferred judgment, Leslie had replied with sarcastic bravado that the freshies had evidently "heard things" during the game which no one else heard.

The game being scheduled for the twenty-seventh of February, Leslie allowed her bruised and shaken team three days' rest. After that time she fairly drove them to private practice. She pestered Ramsey, the coach, for new and sure methods of winning points from an antagonist until he resolved within himself to "beat it" for New York on the day of the game and leave no address. He had received a lump sum in advance for his coaching, so he had no scruples about deserting the ship.

Her five satellites complained bitterly at having to practice every day.

All of them had received warnings in one subject or another and needed their time for study. Leslie was adamant. "Just this one game," she said over and over again. "After that we will settle down to work. I am not doing as well as I ought in my subjects. But you must play the sophs and beat them if you can. Don't try any of those new stunts Ramsey showed you unless you can put them over so cleverly no one will know the difference. You will have to be careful. You have a touchy proposition to tackle."

Alarmed at the gradual decrease in their own popularity, the Sans five practiced a.s.siduously during the week preceding the game. They hoped to make a good showing on their own merits. The coach glibly a.s.sured them that they were doing wonderful work with the ball. Toward the last of their practice they began to believe it themselves.

They continued to believe thus until after the first five minutes of the game on the following Sat.u.r.day. With the gymnasium filled by a clamorous aggregation of students, the toss-up was made and the game begun. The soph.o.m.ore five took the lead from the first and put the Sans five through a pace that made them fairly gasp. All thought of cheating abandoned, they fought desperately to score. They were not allowed to make a single point. Behind the resolution of the sophs to win they demonstrated a peculiarly personal antagonistic force which their opponents felt, dimly at first, keenly afterward. It was the fastest game that had been played for many a year at Hamilton and it ended in a complete whitewash for the juniors. They retired from the floor too utterly vanquished to do other than indulge in a dismal cry in concert once the door of their dressing room had closed upon them.

Thus Leslie found them. Signally discouraged, she experienced a momentary desire to cry with them. She fought it down, gruffly advising her chums not to cry their eyes out in case they might need them later.

"Don't be so simple," was her barren consolation. "You don't see me bathed in salt weeps, do you? No, sir. Forget basket ball. I swear I'll never have anything more to do with it. I'll send that Ramsey packing tomorrow. From now on, I'm going to keep up in my cla.s.ses and after cla.s.ses enjoy myself. If we can't run the college _now_, that's no sign we never will. We can be exclusive. There are enough of us to do that. I don't believe Bean and her crowd are going to tell any tales on us. For the rest of the year we'll just amuse ourselves in our own way."

"It's almost a year since we started to rag Miss Dean and had so much trouble over that affair," half-sobbed Dulcie Vale. "You are always making plans to get even with someone you don't like, Leslie Cairns, and dragging us into them. You never win. You always get the worst of it. I don't intend to go into any more such schemes with you. My father said if ever I was expelled from college he would make me take a position in his office. Think of that!" Dulcie's voice rose to a scream.

"He did? Well, don't tell everybody in the gym about it," Leslie advised, then laughed. Her laughter was echoed in quavering fashion by the other weepers. Under their false and petty ideas of life there was still so much of the eagerness of girlhood to be liked, to succeed and to be happy. Only they were obstinately traveling the wrong road in search of it.

Out in the gymnasium the winning team were being carried about the great room on the shoulders of admiring and noisy fans. Marjorie smiled to herself as she reflected that this was a pleasant ending of her basket-ball days. She had firmly determined not to play during the next year. Standing among her teammates afterward, surrounded by a circle of enthusiastic fans, it was borne upon her that she knew a great many Hamilton girls. She had not thought her friendly acquaintances among them so large.

"You did what Muriel said you folks would do," Jerry exulted, when, congratulations over, Muriel and Marjorie were free to join their chums.

"You laid the junies up for the winter. That team must have been crazy to challenge you. They played well, for them. Against your five--good night! A whitewash! Think of it!"

"They deserved it." Marjorie's eyes lost their smiling light. The curves of her red lips straightened a trifle. "We paid them for ragging the freshies. They have had two hard defeats inside of two weeks. They ought to retire on them. They are lucky in that we haven't made trouble for them. Between you and me, Jeremiah, the Sans are not gaining an inch at Hamilton. The juniors are peeved with them for not taking proper interest in the Valentine dance. Many of the seniors disapprove of them, particularly since the game they won dishonestly from the freshies. Only a handful of the sophs cling to them. The freshies--I don't know. They are still about half Sans-bound. Just the same, democracy at Hamilton isn't on the wane. It's on the gain."

CHAPTER XXVI.

ON MAY-DAY NIGHT.

The whitewashing which the soph.o.m.ore team gave the Sans five, who had so illy represented the juniors at basket ball, was a defeat the Sans found hard to endure. Adopting Leslie's advice, they carried their heads high and affected great exclusiveness. They also entered upon a career of lavish expenditure within their own circle calculated to attract and impress those who had formerly shown respect for them and their money.

It was successful in a measure. They could be sn.o.bbish without trying.

Nevertheless, they knew they had lost irretrievably. The backbone of their pernicious influence was broken.

A warm and early spring brought the basket-ball season to a close sooner than usual. Despite Marjorie's resolve not to play again, she took part in one more game against the freshman. The sophs won by four points, but the freshies were such a gallant five, they came in for almost an equal amount of applause. They were dear to the hearts of the sports-loving element of students.

As spring advanced with her thousand soft airs and graces, it seemed to Marjorie that a new era of good feeling had come to Hamilton College.

"College is nearer my ideal of it than it used to be," she said to Jerry one bright afternoon in late April, as the two stood on the steps of the Hall waiting for Helen, Leila and Vera, who had gone to the garage for Leila's car. The five girls were going to Hamilton on a shopping expedition. The first of May at hand, the Lookouts and their intimates were going to follow the old custom of hanging May baskets. Leila had proposed it. The others had hailed the idea with avidity.

"Mine, too," nodded Jerry. "When first we came back here we thought we would have to depend on our own little crowd for our good times. Now we have more invitations than we can accept. It's the same with lots of the other girls, too. There's a really friendly spirit abroad on the campus.

The day of democracy is at hand."

"I hope so. Anyway, things are pleasanter here than when we enrolled. Of course, we know many of the students now. That makes a difference.

Still, there isn't the same chill in the social atmosphere that there used to be. Here comes our good old chauffeur, Leila Greatheart. She has been obliging and unselfish enough with us all to deserve a carload of May baskets. How many are you going to hang, Jeremiah?"

"About a dozen, more or less," Jerry replied indefinitely. "I'll see how expert I shall be at making them."

"I'm going to make Leila a green one and fill it with pistachio bars and green and white candies. On top I'll put a green and gold lace pin I bought yesterday in Hamilton. I'll make Vera a pale pink one and fill it with French bon-bons. I shall give her a very beautiful string of coral beads that Captain gave me long ago. Vera and Leila have both been so dear about taking us around in their cars, I want to make them special presents. The other baskets I shall just fill with candy or flowers."

"We'll have to make a trip to the florist's late on May-day afternoon or our posies won't be fresh to put in the baskets. I shall buy some little fancy baskets if I can find them. My own handiwork may not turn out very well." Jerry had prudently decided to be on the safe side.

Filled with the goodwill attending the pretty spring-time custom, it was a merry band of shoppers that invaded the Hamilton stores in search of materials for baskets. Crepe paper, ribbon, fancy silk and bright artificial wreaths and boutennieres shown in the millinery windows were purchased in profusion. Dainty baskets were not so easy to obtain. The girls finally found the sizes and shapes they desired at the florist's where they placed their order for May-day blossoms. The confectionery they decided to leave until the day before the basket hanging, so that it would be perfectly fresh. "Don't insult your friends by handing 'em stale candy," was Jerry's advice.

For four evenings following the first shopping trip, a round of gaieties went on in one or another of the basket-makers' rooms. Under their clever fingers the May-time tributes were fashioned rapidly and well.

Even Jerry found she could do amazing wonders with crepe paper ribbon and pasteboard, once she had "got the hang of the thing."

The hardest problem which confronted the givers was how to hang their offerings and slip away before the recipient opened her door and nabbed the stealthy donor. As there was only one door k.n.o.b to each door, the gift baskets must perforce be set in a row before it. Each girl had private dark intent of smashing the ten-thirty rule and creeping out into the hall after lights were out. This would prevent any attempt on the part of jokers to surrept.i.tiously confiscate the fruits of their industry.

Marjorie was confronted by a considerably harder problem. She had a basket to hang which was destined to grace a door quite outside of the Hall. She had purchased a particularly beautiful little willow basket.

Through its open work she had run pale violet satin ribbon. A huge bow and long streamers of wider ribbon decorated the handle. The basket was to be filled with long-stemmed single violets which grew in profusion at the north end of the campus. To the curious questions of her chums regarding the lucky recipient of the basket, she merely replied with a laughing shake of her head, "Maybe I'll tell you someday."