CHAPTER VI

THE DEAN SENDS FOR ANN

“Miss Tudor blames me for the whole thing,” continued Eleanor, “but I said that I’d leave school before I’d go back with the girls, Gen and Maddy. ‘Now, now, Miss Frost,’ she said, ‘don’t say anything that you would regret.’” Eleanor raised her finger warningly in imitation of Miss Tudor’s manner. “And Miss Tudor _would_ let me go, too, rather than have any of the girls tell _her_ what to do!”

“Do you blame her?” laughed Ann.

“Not a bit of it,” said the amusing Eleanor. She had come out of her reserve with a vengeance. “Well, what are we going to do about it?”

“Take what comes,” said Ann.

“She may ask you to suggest.”

“I hope not. Is there any other Sig-Ep girl, or one that isn’t, that you would like to be with Suzanne, in case Marta and I give up our share in the suite and take a single room?”

Eleanor eyed Ann suspiciously. “I bet that is what you’d rather do!”

“No; as I told you, I’d rather let things alone. Yet it does worry me, the more I think about Suzanne. And I could not bear to turn Marta out, you see. Marta is the kind that would do it in a minute, and I hope she doesn’t even hear about it! Let me tell you, girls, I’m not going to suggest _any_ plan to Miss Tudor, but I’ll tell her what I think if she asks me.”

As Ann spoke there came another rap, this time on their outer door. “For me, I suppose,” said Ann, rising to admit the caller.

Ann did some rapid thinking as she crossed the campus. While it would spoil Suzanne considerably to have her own way about rooming with Eleanor, any arrangement which would take her out of Madeline’s close intimacy would be good. But Ann felt rather disgusted by this time with the whole affair and the fact that she had to be drawn into it.

She had been told that she was to go to Miss Tudor’s private rooms and thither she directed her way, rapping gently. Some way, although she knew that she was not to be corrected for any fault, the very idea of being sent for by the dean made Ann nervous. She felt worried over the affair, and when she was admitted, sitting down to wait for Miss Tudor, she found that her hands were cold and felt her face grow flushed at the thought of the coming interview.

“Good evening, Miss Sterling,” said Miss Tudor, entering from a door behind Ann. Ann immediately rose, as she replied to the greeting, and was waved back to her chair as Miss Tudor sat down. She came right to the point.

“You know, I presume, the matter about which I want to talk to you?”

“Yes, Miss Tudor. Suzanne, Eleanor and Aline have told me.”

“Do you want to room with your cousin?”

Ann hesitated. “I want to do what is the square thing, Miss Tudor. It does not seem fair to turn Marta out. I think a great deal of her, besides. But it would be better for Suzanne not to room with Madeline and Genevieve.”

Miss Tudor nodded. “If I could make suitable arrangements for the other girls, would you and Marta together be willing to give up the suite that you have now with Eleanor and Aline?”

“So far as I am concerned, yes, Miss Tudor. Marta and I were both surprised at this arrangement, but we like the girls. Eleanor has been real fair and we are very fond of Aline.”

“I am glad to hear you say so. That is all, then, Miss Sterling.”

What a relief to be outside the door. Had she said the right thing? Was it mean to imply what she did about Genevieve and Madeline? Would Miss Tudor think that she, Ann, was one of those “goody-goody” girls that Suzanne talked about with such contempt? “I don’t care,” she told herself. “I have to make good here, and I’ve something else to do besides run around with them. Dear me! If Suzanne rooms with me, I’ll have to do most of my studying in the library, I guess!”

Crossing the campus again, she met Marta hurrying in the direction from which she had just come. “Say, Ann,” she cried, before she reached Ann’s near neighborhood, “what’s all this? Miss Tudor sent for me, and Eleanor says that you are,--have been there. What’s up?”

“Didn’t Eleanor tell you?”

“No; she wouldn’t, just laughed; and I thought that she seemed a bit embarrassed.”

“I can’t imagine Eleanor’s losing her way of carrying things off! But I’ll let Miss Tudor explain what is on hand,--largely because I want you to remember what she does say. Will you?”

“I’ll try,” laughed Marta.

“And Marta! I don’t know what Miss Tudor is going to do about the matter that has come up, but promise me that you will come to me right afterwards and hear what I have to say about it.”

“I promise,” cried Marta, running on.

But Ann was troubled. “Let the old lessons go!” she thought. “I’m going to be right there when Marta comes out. She might think that I am in with the girls in wanting to room with Suzanne, or something!” Whereupon, Ann retraced her steps and chose a quiet spot upon the broad porch of the administration building. Ordinarily, she would be supposed to be in her room, as study hours had long since commenced. But she thought that she would be able to explain her presence if questioned.

She had scarcely seated herself, behind one of the pillars, when Miss Bunn, or “Bunny”, came out of the building and looked around before descending the steps. Ann immediately felt like a transgressor.

Seeing some one behind the pillar, “Bunny” came around to see who it was. “Why, Miss Sterling,” she said, “I am surprised! Do you not know that study hours have begun?”

“Yes, Miss Bunn,” said Ann, rising, “but my room-mate is in Miss Tudor’s room and I have just come from the same place. I thought that I would wait a few minutes for Marta.”

Miss Bunn’s nose gave the familiar twist. “It is very irregular for you to be here. It will be quite dark in a few minutes.”

“Yes, Miss Bunn,” replied Ann, having a bright thought. “Don’t you think that it really would be better for me to wait for Marta, so we can go across the campus together?”

“Perhaps it would,” said Miss Bunn, somewhat doubtfully. “But if Marta should be detained some time, do not wait,--not more than a _very few minutes_, Miss Sterling. Otherwise I shall have to report you as out of your room in study hours.”

“Very well, Miss Bunn,” respectfully said Ann, for the first time feeling like being impertinent to a teacher. She remained standing while Miss Bunn, still with the attitude of disapproval, slowly walked down the steps and around the walk.

“Fussy old thing,” thought impatient Ann. “She just wanted to show her authority!” But Ann did not realize how Miss Tudor had impressed all her staff with the importance of looking after these girls, many of them accustomed to very little restraint at home, much less than would have been good for them. The trouble with poor, conscientious Miss Bunn was that her manner with the girls prejudiced them against her, with the result that even the obedient ones resented her authority.

Time went slowly, especially since Ann felt out of place. She thought that at least fifteen minutes must have gone by when she looked at her watch, barely to be seen in the fading light, to find that only five minutes had passed since she last consulted it. And here came Marta.

“Well!” exclaimed the surprised Marta, “that you, Ann? She didn’t keep me long, did she?”

“It seemed ages. I was worried for fear she would say something that you would not understand about what I thought, and then, with the girls in the suite, perhaps there would not be a good chance to tell you all about everything. Bunny came by and reminded me that it was study hours; but this was too important, so I stayed.”

“Come on over to my practice room. It may not be my room, of course, for our practice hours may be changed; but it will be a good place to talk. Nobody will mind. I think that Bunny was ahead of time about study hours. We’ll not be supposed to keep them tonight,--oh, of course, to stay off the campus. But there go some girls now. There will have to be a lot of going back and forth. Come on.”

The girls went to the building in which both had practiced on their respective instruments the previous year. It was dark, and when they tried the doors they were locked. “I might have known!” exclaimed Marta, in disgust. “Idiot!--I am referring to myself, Miss Sterling!”

“Your explanation is accepted,” laughed Ann, “but I might have had a brain or two about _me_! We’ll just sit down a few minutes on these steps to unburden our souls.”

“I’ve precious little to unburden,” said Marta. “Miss Tudor began as if it were a social call. She asked me about what sort of a summer I had had, then seemed very much interested in my description of your home and the lovely mountain cabin, lodge, I mean. She asked me how you and I became acquainted, how we got along together, if we belonged to the same sorority with Eleanor and Suzanne, and who my special friends in the school were.”

“Foxy Miss Tudor!” Ann remarked.

“Yes; I began to smell a mouse when she began to inquire about my friends. It was something about rooming, of course. Then she asked me if I would be willing to make a change to some other suite or a room, if the present arrangement did not seem best. She said, too, before I answered, that you ‘expressed yourself as willing to give up the suite.’”

“Aha!--angelic Miss Tudor!”

Marta peered through the gathering darkness to see if Ann were losing her mind. “Why all this enthusiasm about our dean?” she inquired.

“I may tell you some time,” replied Ann.

“That was all. I told her that I did not care much, and if it were easier all around for her to change us, I did not mind.”

“Marta, you are an old dear, and I shall not worry a mite about what Miss Tudor is going to do. Let’s go home, look over our lessons and go to bed. I think that it was a shame to post lessons and send us to our teachers the opening day. They never did that before. They must have a new system and are speeding up. We do lose a lot of time; and they had all our books ready.”

“Just the same, I don’t believe that we shall recite, on account of the new students in all the classes. But Ann, _why_ did you want me to come right to you after seeing Miss Tudor? What has been going on?”

“If you don’t mind, Marta, I’ll wait, until whatever is to be done is done, and then tell you.”

“All right. As you say, ‘curiosity killed the cat,’ and I’m sleepy.”

The girls talked of other things as they sped toward their new home. There they found the suite empty, as Ann had hoped. She did wish that no explanations would be necessary tonight. No telling what idea of self-sacrifice Marta might get,--and spoil it all. Both girls were sleepy after a full day. It was bath and bed, trusting to luck and early rising for the lessons of the morrow.

Ann felt comfortable as she drifted off to sleep. She hoped that she had not been hypocritical in what she had said to Eleanor. She really would have preferred no change. But if there must be one, it was pleasant to think that she and Marta were not to be separated.