"Of course, or I'd have sent word by you instead of phoning," said Elinor quickly. "Come along down, both of you. Everything is ready, and Margaret Howes is making Welsh rarebit just specially for you--she heard you say you adored it. Hurry, hurry."

CHAPTER VI

AFTERMATH

The feast was half over when Patricia, who sat between Margaret Howes and Griffin and opposite to the adorable Doris Leighton, got a distinct shock.

The girls had been talking of the initiation and the part that Elinor had played.

"Your sister has covered herself with glory by the way she took her hazing," said Margaret, deftly winding a long string of the rarebit around a bread stick and popping it in her mouth.

"She certainly saved us from a fluke by the nice fashion in which she turned the popular attention from that idiot who was leading the band,"

added Griffin, reaching for the mustard.

Patricia longed to ask a question, but Margaret Howes saved her the necessity.

"Who was it, do you know, Griffin?" she inquired in a lowered tone.

"Can't be certain, of course, but I have my doubts," replied Griffin, in the same pitch. "I think that I recognized the silvery tones of a fair one who is not too far away from us," and she glanced significantly across the table to where Doris Leighton sat with the candle-light shining in her bright hair and a little smile curving her pink lips.

Patricia caught the look, and was instantly both astonished and indignant.

"I don't see how you can think that!" she cried hotly, and then hastily lowering her voice, she added: "You must have known who they chose for leader, even if you both were at the tail of the march."

Griffin grinned good-naturedly. "Keep your righteous wrath for the right fellow, young 'un. When you've been in the night life as many years as I have, you'll know that we don't choose a leader--she simply elects herself by taking the head of the procession. We never know who's who after we rig up. That's part of the game. So, you see, it may have been the charming Doris, or Howes here, or my unworthy self, that put those obnoxious questions to your sister--no one knows for sure, and the mean cuss won't tell."

"Why should she want to be horrid to Elinor?" persisted Patricia, frowning a little in her earnestness. "We don't know her very well yet, but she's been perfectly sweet to us both."

"That describes her to a T, doesn't it, Howes?" grinned the imperturbable Griffin. "That's the way we find her--so sweet that she is sickening, eh?"

"Hush, she'll hear you!" warned Howes, laughing a little, nevertheless, whereupon Patricia instantly decided that she had been mistaken in Margaret Howes' character, and that she was less open-minded and warm-hearted than she had believed.

"I can't see why you should pitch on her," insisted Patricia, kneading her cake into pills in her agitation. "What could she have against Elinor?"

Griffin yawned elaborately and then addressed Margaret Howes with lifted eyebrows.

"This young person, though evidently of an investigating turn of mind, has not quite fathomed the nature of the reigning beauty of our little coterie. Being of a candid and affable nature herself, she fails to comprehend how the fangs of the green-eyed monster, once fastened in the tender heart of said beauty, make the said beauty so mortally uncomfy that she's bound to take it out on somebody--and who so natural or convenient as the critter who sicked the serpent on her."

"You mean that she is jealous of Elinor?" asked Patricia, opening her eyes very wide. "Why, Elinor is only a beginner, and _she's_ studied abroad!"

"All the same, she sees that Kendall Major is about to s.n.a.t.c.h the laurel wreath from all our heads, and she doesn't want to do without any of her ornaments."

"But Elinor didn't even get a criticism in the head cla.s.s yet,"

protested Patricia, unconvinced. "Mr. Benton didn't get around to her this morning, and she doesn't get any criticism in the night life till tomorrow afternoon. I don't see how she could be jealous."

Griffin made a face over a sip of over-heated cocoa. "Just as you please," she murmured benevolently. "Make the best of it, like a good child. Charity is the chief Christian virtue and an ornament to all.

Are you going in for the prize design, Howes? I hear that it's open to the whole cla.s.s."

"Haven't heard of it," replied Margaret Howes, with eager interest.

"What is it? And who's giving it?"

"Roberts, the big New York decorator. He's offering a hundred dollars for the best design for a panel for a library--originality to be the chief feature. Popsy Brown told me. I thought it had been announced."

"It wasn't on the bulletin board this afternoon," said a girl across the table, who had been listening to this last speech. "Tell us about it, Griffie dear. We're all dying to hear."

"Spout it out loud!" called another from the end of the table. "We can't catch your m.u.f.fled accents down here."

The announcement of the prize was received with such lively interest that it routed all other subjects, and even Patricia caught the enthusiasm.

"I hope Elinor tries for it," she said excitedly. "She'll say she's too green, I suppose."

"Tell her to make a hack at it anyway," urged Margaret Howes earnestly.

"Originality is the thing that counts, and she's got as good a chance as any of us there."

"Better," said Griffin tersely. "We're so filled with other people's ideas that we've degenerated into regular copy-cats. I can't undertake any subject but that I have a lot of designs by famous painters popping into my mind and mixing me up horribly."

"I wish I could draw," mused Patricia, absently sugaring her Frankfurter. "I've got tons of ideas already."

"That reminds me," broke out Griffin. "There's a prize for the mud larks, too. I've forgotten what it is, but it'll be posted in the morning. There's your chance, young 'un. You're eligible for it."

Patricia was about to speak, but there was a general stir and a voice cried, authoritatively:

"Eight o'clock. Time to break up! Three cheers for Kendall Major and her candy toys. The Academy Howl, ladies, if you please!"

A s.p.a.ce was hurriedly cleared at the other end of the table, a chair placed and Patricia saw Elinor, blushing and protesting, thrust into it by a dozen laughing students.

Patricia stood to one side, as they formed a hasty group in the open s.p.a.ce by the door, and, with Griffin beating time, stretched their mouths to the utmost and gave the Academy Howl with a vim that was deafening, drawing out the final deep growling notes to a weirdly wailing finish that sent Patricia and Elinor into gales of mirth.

"How in the world did you make up such an unearthly yodel?" demanded Elinor, preparing to descend from her chair of state. "I hope I'm not expected to answer in kind."

"You don't budge from there, young lady, till you've given us a song,"

declared Griffin, vigorously. "We know your dark secrets. We've heard that you can warble a bit."

Elinor sat down in surprise. "Oh, but I can't," she protested. "I can't sing at all. Miss Pat----"

A glare from Patricia stopped her, but it was too late. A chorus of laughing voices took up the demand, "A song, Miss Pat!" "Don't be stingy, Kendall Minor; tune up!" "Give us a sample, Miss Pat!" until Griffin, with a bow, offered her arm to the rebellious Patricia and led her, protesting and abashed, to the chair whence Elinor had escaped.

Once on the impromptu platform, Patricia's embarra.s.sment dropped from her, and she smiled a ready acknowledgment to the shouts that demanded a dozen different songs at once.

"I can't sing them all at once," she said, gayly. "But if you'll settle on one that I know, I'll do my best for you. You've given me an awfully good time tonight, and I'm only too glad to sing for you."

After a great deal of good-humored bickering and sifting of requests to suit Patricia's repertoire, the tumult gradually quieted and Patricia rose.

"I'll sing 'Mary of Argyle' first, and then a new little song, but it won't sound very well without any accompaniment," she said simply, and then, folding her hands before her and tilting her head like a bird, she began to sing, softly at first and then louder till her voice soared and rang echoing through the bare, empty rooms that flanked the lunch rooms.

"I have watched thy heart, my Mary, And its goodness was the wile, That has made me thine forever, Bonnie Mary of Argyle."