CHAPTER XIII: LIGHT ON THE SORORITY QUESTION

Betty had to decide what she would do about "sororities." She had discussed them frankly with a few of the girls, those she knew well, perfectly sincere girls and her good friends. Outside of that little circle she had been careful what she said. She had been included with Lucia, Mathilde, Carolyn and Peggy in attentions from the juniors of the Kappa Upsilons. That there was a small addition to that "chapter" in process of being made among the sophomores she knew. If the other girls joined, especially Carolyn, would it make a difference in their friendship? Yet Kathryn, while she had been invited to Marcella's party, that glorious Hallowe'en party, had received no further attention. Perhaps it was a matter of numbers.

Now Marcella had come right out and asked her what she thought of Kappa Upsilon and whether she had any objection to a high school sorority that "really complied with the rules you know."

Fortunately the question came at the close of school when Betty was rushing home to let her mother go somewhere without Amy Louise. Betty was going to get the dinner that night. "Why, Marcella, I think anything that you belong to would have to be all right," she answered. "I've got to _rush_, Marcella, to catch that car!" and Betty scampered as fast as she could, noting from Marcella's smile and nod that she understood. More than one important conversation was sometimes interrupted because one of the participants had to hurry to orchestra practice or a Dramatic Club meeting or a meeting of the _Lions' Roar_ reporters or editors, or merely to catch a car home, as in the present instance.

All the way home, the people in the car were as shadows to Betty as she sat squeezed in between a fat lady and one of the senior girls until the car reached her stop. She vaguely recalled answering a few remarks from the senior girl, whom she did not know, but her mind was chiefly concerned about what she should do.

She nearly put sugar instead of salt into the potatoes when she mashed them, and when she finally took up the supper and was sitting in her mother's place, fixing Amy Lou's milk, she answered a question from her father, with such a blank, "What, sir?" that Dick looked up from his plate to say rudely, "What's eating you Betty?" and Doris said "Are you mad at anybody?"

Betty waked up immediately and came back to the present scene. "Oh, no, Doris! I've just been thinking about something."

"Betty has great powers of concentration," said Mr. Lee, with a twinkle in his eyes, "but look out; it's dangerously near absent-mindedness."

"So it is, Daddy. I've got a funny little problem to solve, that's all. I'm sorry I was so absorbed. But the twins were telling you all about their affairs anyhow----"

"When last you heard anything," laughed Dick. "We hadn't said a word for at least a full minute and a half!"

"It was Amy Lou, then," suggested Betty.

"I didn't do anything," said Amy Lou, getting ready to put up an injured lip.

"Mercy no, darling. You're all right. It's old Betty that isn't much good as a mother substitute. Isn't that so?"

But Amy Lou was drinking her milk now and when she put down her tumbler she said, rather gaspingly, "I love Mother and I love Betty, too. She made the dessert just like Grandma."

After dinner Doris and Dick did the dishes, by previous arrangement, and Betty went to her lessons, while Mr. Lee had his customary little visit with his youngest daughter before her bedtime. That was to be a little later than usual this time. But Betty could not study very well. It was hard to settle to anything someway and when Amy Lou's father was putting her to bed, the telephone rang. Dick answered it and called Betty, who had been alone back in her bedroom.

It was Carolyn Gwynne. "'Lo, Betty. Betty I've got a problem I can't answer."

"Have you, what is it?"

"I had an invitation this afternoon and I sort of suspect you had, too. Did you?"

"Why--I don't know. I'm not sure just what you mean. Perhaps I would have had one if I hadn't had to rush for a car and get home. Mother was invited out for dinner and I cooked ours."

"Oh, did you? I wish I knew how! Well, I just have to see you some way. Could you leave for just a little while if I drove over for you!"

"I'll ask. I've lessons well enough up, I suppose. I got most of them at school, and if you're thinking of the same thing I am, I'd surely like to talk it over with you. Hold the wire a moment."

Betty tiptoed back, hoping that Amy Lou hadn't gotten to the stage when it was best not to rouse her from her sleepiness. But she heard her childish conversation with her father and went near the door. "Father, excuse me, but Carolyn wants to know if I can drive over with her if she comes for me. We have--something to decide and it's--important."

"Is she driving, this late?"

"Oh, no. She wouldn't be allowed. She will be driven."

"Very well, then, but do not stay late."

"No. I have my lessons pretty well, Father."

Betty reported the favorable answer and it was not long before she and Carolyn were in secret conference in Carolyn's pretty room. Carolyn put Betty in the gay _chaise lounge_ that was her own, drew up a big chair for herself and established a little "end table" between them. On this reposed a box of taffies and a plate of apples.

"My, such preparations!" laughed Betty.

"Don't you like 'em?" twinkled Carolyn.

"Indeed I do! I'm so thankful to be invited over, for I couldn't study or do anything else," and Betty gave Carolyn a history of her preoccupation while she tried to cook dinner and serve it.

"Tell me why you were preoccupied, Betty," urged Carolyn.

"Oh, _you_ tell what your problem is."

"_Please_," said Carolyn, and Betty "weakly yielded," as she announced before she told.

"It's just because you're nicer than I am," said Carolyn, "but I have a reason."

"You may not think what I have to tell you is much, but it was Marcella's manner and I saw that she wanted to talk to me," said Betty, who went on to give an account of what Marcella had said.

Carolyn listened with interest. "Yes, that was it. It was one of the other girls that talked to me, though. But she told me that some of my special friends were being asked, or would be asked to join the Kappa Upsilons. It _would_ be fun, Betty!"

"Yes, it would; but there's a lot of things to be considered. In the first place it _is_, really, a high school sorority. The girls don't even pretend that it isn't, or practically the same thing. How do they get around it, Carolyn?"

"By having people outside of high school belong to it and claiming that it is just a society and not a high school affair."

"I see. I've been trying out Mother and Father on high school sororities and all I can get out of them is surprise that I should mention it at all. 'How can they have sororities if they are forbidden?' asks my dear mother!"

"Yes--my father the same--but Mother knows. She just laughs. I didn't tell her I'd been bid today. Well, now, listen, Betty. We agree that it would be fun. So it would. That's that. It sounds well to be a Kappa Upsilon and we can go around if we like and be as snooty as any of them. But they've dropped Kathryn since the party, for one thing. She did not mention it, though of course she has noticed it, but when I asked her about something that I was in on she didn't know a thing about it and looked at me as _funny_--I don't think it was nice of them, to pay attention and then drop a person like a hot cake."

"No. That isn't like Marcella Waite, though."

"Marcella is a fine girl, but there are two or three that are different. Oh, they're nice enough. A body could have them for friends, but they take up little things. Kathryn may have said something that wasn't according to their notion. Kathryn is pretty independent, you know."

"So am I," said Betty.

"Yes, but with a little difference, and then you are prominent now in athletics. They all expect you to win something in the girls' swimming meet and you are going to make the basketball team."

"Am I?" laughed Betty, "how nice!"

Carolyn laughed too, but went on. "So you are as good as asked, Betty. Now the question is, what are we going to do about it? I want to and I don't want to--and oh, I must tell you what Louise Madison says. She is over here once in a while, you know, and I was talking to her about sororities.

"She said, 'Why don't you wait till you go to the University and join some sororities that amount to something and are real sororities, national and all that?'

"Then my sister said that the girls were afraid that they might not get bid to one in the University, that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush and that some of them thought a girl was more likely to be asked into a sonority in the University if she had belonged to a high school sorority."

"Does Louise belong to a sorority over there?"

"Yes, and my sister, too, but they were talking about some of their friends that didn't get in and how unhappy they were. That's the worst of it. Louise was asked by my sister's sorority."

"Was Louise in a high school sorority?"

"No--she said that she wouldn't be. There wasn't any one started that she wanted to join when she was a freshman or sophomore and then she got into so much responsibility in the G. A. A. and cared for athletics so much more, I guess. But Louise didn't say a word about herself. I got all about her through Letty. Letitia didn't go to high school much. She was sick some and it was better for her to go to private school. My Dad's the one that insisted on _my_ going to Lyon High."

"I'm certainly glad that you did," said Betty, with emphasis. "I'm glad to hear all this, Carolyn, and Louise's idea. There's another thing. I can't see that it makes much difference on our 'social position,' outside of just a few girls that we like, like Marcella, because there's such a _mob_ of folks in this big high school. The sororities _can't_ have so much influence, outside of their own little group, and we could just as easily have our own friends. There are such _loads_ of nice girls in the Girl Reserves, for instance, and in the swimming and games who cares what sorority a girl belongs to, or knows, for that matter!"

"Oh, they work for their own, Betty. You'd be surprised at the things _some_ of the girls will do to be represented in prominent affairs."

"Does it get them anywhere?"

"Sometimes."

Betty thoughtfully tapped her fingers on the arms of the _chaise lounge_ and Carolyn offered the box of taffies.

"Do you know who are going in with the Kappa Upsilons?" asked Betty, talking off the oiled paper from her candy. "Carolyn," she said, by way of parenthesis, "if I eat this, I'll not be able to talk!"

"That's all right," said Carolyn, removing the paper from her piece. "Perhaps we need to do some _thinking_!"

"Yes--but I've thought and thought. What I need to do is deciding."

"Help me decide, too."

"I wouldn't dare take the responsibility."

"It makes a lot of difference what _you_ do, Betty. I'll not care so much to be in it unless you are."

"Oh, Carolyn!"

"It's so, Betty Lee! But you asked me who were being asked or who were going in, which isn't quite the same thing. I think Peggy Pollard will, and Lucia has said she would. They are crazy to get her into it--the daughter of a count and countess!"

"Yes, but Lucia is good enough to be asked on her own account, and she can be pardoned, perhaps, for being 'snooty' in social matters."

"I don't see why!"

"I mean because of the way she has been brought up. Don't you suppose if you'd had family and wealth drilled into you and all that way of living it would make you different?"

"Yes--I imagine it would. Lucia's been everywhere."

It was, indeed, difficult to talk now, since the taffies were being more than sampled. But by degrees a few more thoughts on sororities were exchanged.

"Suppose we sleep over it," suggested Betty. "I've got to make a list, I think, of arguments for and against. The biggest argument _for_ is Marcella and how good it is of them to want us. A person hates to refuse and seem not to appreciate being asked. And then you run the chance of their unfriendliness, too."

"Yes," said Carolyn, with a frown; "but I don't believe Marcella Waite would be that way. Do you think so?"

"I hope not. I had the best time at her party!"

"So did I. Oh, by the way, Mathilde is invited and there isn't any chance of her not accepting. Julia--I may as well tell you who asked me--Julia Hickok said that Mathilde is so fond of Lucia Coletti and that they think she, Mathilde, will make a very loyal sorority sister."

Betty gave Carolyn a sober glance. "Lucia could handle Mathilde, if necessary," she replied. "Lucia is a girl of some force, Father says. But on which side of the arguments for and against shall we put Mathilde's being in the sorority?"

Carolyn smiled. "It wouldn't make so much difference to me. I could get along with 'Finney'--I'm not like Dotty."

"I think you could get along with anybody, Carolyn, you are such a dear. But there it is. I think 'getting along' with sorority sisters that one did not choose for intimate friends would hinder me in my 'great ambitions' in other lines. But I've simply got to sleep on it, Carolyn."

"Probably I'd better, too, but we haven't much time, Betty. I told Julia I'd tell her in the morning. I had to ask what Mother and Father thought. She laughed at me for a goose, then told me that I mustn't make that an excuse. I told her that I thought they would let me do what I wanted to do, but that I ought to tell them at least. I hope that she didn't take that as a promise. Away from Julia and talking it over with you makes me not so enthusiastic. Call me up in the morning, Betty, if you've decided before you go to school."

"I will have decided all right," said Betty. "It's a thing you can't put off. I'll decide, if I have to draw cuts!"