CHAPTER XXI.

“WE MUST WORK TOGETHER”

“A gentleman to see me?” Marjorie repeated wonderingly. She turned a look of mild inquiry upon the maid. “Didn’t he give you his name, Annie?” Marjorie’s thoughts at once flashed to her general. Perhaps he had come to Hamilton to give her a surprise. Business might have brought him near the campus. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes sparkled at the fond thought.

“Please, Miss Dean, I asked him his name once and he said it, but I couldn’t understand what he said. He said it kind of low and rumbly. I hated to ask him again,” Annie confessed, looking her confusion.

“Oh, never mind, Annie.” Marjorie smiled away the maid’s discomfiture with winsome good nature. “I’ll go down and see for myself. Please say to the gentleman that I will be down directly.”

Marjorie returned to 15 with the two plates of sandwiches. If she carried them on into Ronny’s room she would not go down stairs for the next ten minutes. Oddly enough she thought also of Hal as a possible visitor.

“Have you changed your mind about letting Ronny have these sandwiches?” Jerry asked humorously as Marjorie hastily re-placed them on the table.

“No, I haven’t, Jeering Jeremiah,” Marjorie laughed. “You are to have the sandwich-moving job. There’s a gentleman downstairs to see me.”

“What?” Jerry showed mild surprise. “A gentleman in this girl-inhabited burg! It takes my breath. I mean to have one call on you at the Hall. Who is he, or is that a secret?”

“I don’t know who he is. I’m going down to see.”

“It might be a book agent who has just heard that you go to college. It might be a tin peddler who suspects we cook in our room and wants us to try his tin dishes. It might be a carpet sweeper pest who has a carpet sweeper that operates in mid air and simply coaxes the dust up from the floor. Only those gentlemen always hunt by day. It might be—”

“Good-bye. I’m going downstairs. I can’t stop to listen to any more of your weird theories, Jeremiah. I’ll be back soon, I hope.” Smiling over Jerry’s ridiculous suppositions, Marjorie made a hasty start for downstairs.

The man who rose to greet her as she entered the living room bore no resemblance to either her general or Hal. Her caller was Peter Graham.

“Why, good evening, Mr. Graham.” She held out her hand. “This _is_ a surprise, but always a pleasant one. You must have wondered what had become of Miss Page and me.”

“No, I knew you were busy, Miss Marjorie.” Peter Graham’s fine face lighted beautifully at sight of her. “You and Miss Robin have been very faithful. It has been of the greatest assistance to me. Now we must work together, more than ever.”

He ceased speaking and looked at her with an intensity of expression which somehow filled her with vague alarm.

“What is it, Mr. Graham?” Her mind would have instantly formed the conclusion that this call had to do with some serious crisis in his personal affairs if he had not said: “Now we must work together more than ever.”

“The majority of my workers have left me, Miss Marjorie,” he said with a straight simplicity which marked him as a man worth while. “They have gone over to the garage operation. There is no question in my mind as to how the whole thing happened.”

“Leslie Cairns.” The words leaped involuntarily to Marjorie’s lips. Immediately what Leila and Jerry had said before dinner returned to her mind with a rush. How precisely it fitted with that one pertinent sentence: “They have gone over to the garage operation.”

“Yes, Miss Cairns is responsible.” He spoke with quiet surety. “Still, I cannot understand how she managed so cleverly to keep me in the dark about her treacherous work until the mischief was done. Day before yesterday my entire force was at work on the dormitory. Yesterday three or four of my most useful Italians did not come to work. By noon today I was deserted except for four Hamilton carpenters and builders whom I have known and worked with for years. These four stood by me. Every last one of the others went over to the garage.”

“Was there—did these men give their reason for going?” Marjorie asked with admirable composure. “Before you answer, Mr. Graham, may I go upstairs for Miss Page? She happens to be here this evening. It is her right to hear as well as mine.”

“I am glad she is here. It is most fortunate for us. We shall be able to decide what we can do that much the sooner.” The builder bowed abstracted acknowledgment as Marjorie excused herself and hurried upstairs. Peter Graham’s mind had dwelt upon nothing else but what might be done to clear away the ugly situation resulting from Leslie Cairns’s malice.

She found Robin in the midst of the party group in Ronny’s room. Under Jerry’s laughable supervision the eats had been transferred without accident to the immediate scene of the festivity. Ronny, as hostess-guest of honor, was in high feather. She was hospitably concocting a delectable mixture which she called “Encanta Manaña” as she chatted animatedly with her friends. It was a fruit punch founded on lemons and oranges and further improved by a blending of fruit syrups. These syrups had been made from the fruits of her ranch home and put up in the ranch laboratory. They were as welcome at a spread as was Leila’s imported ginger ale.

Her own little coterie of friends had remembered her birthday that morning with lavish giving. The top of her chiffonier was covered with affectionate remembrances, each one selected with a view to Ronny’s peculiarly strong, attractive individuality.

“I can’t stay up here one minute, girls,” Marjorie hastily told the revelers. They had listened in blank silence to her as she acquainted Robin with the dismaying situation. “Go ahead, and have a good time, minus Page and Dean. We’ll be back within an hour, I think; perhaps before then.”

A buzzing murmur arose from the group as the partners exchanged eye messages of undying loyalty, linked arms and marched together from the room. Page and Dean would fight gallantly beside Peter Graham for the good of the dormitory.

Entering the living room Peter Graham shook hands with Robin. The partners seated themselves side by side on a small settee, while Peter Graham drew a wicker rocker close enough to them to permit of low-toned conversation.

The builder then began an account of the chief happenings on the day before the trouble became evident. He followed it with a more detailed description of the desertion, first of the three or four Italians, then the rest of the force, except the four Hamilton carpenters.

“When I saw those fellows I had tried to do well by over on the other lot I knew there was only one thing had taken them there. They’d been offered a good deal more money than we were paying them. I knew Thorne & Foster hadn’t offered it to them.” The builder smiled, a quiet, scornful smile. “They are niggards.

“I decided to go over and have a talk with Pedro Tomasi, one of the older men of the quarter. He had always seemed very well disposed toward me. I went only as far as the edge of the garage excavation.” He laughed, but in his laugh he showed his deep-lying indignation. “I was ordered off the lot by Thorne & Foster’s foreman. What construction would you place on such an act on their part after what I just remarked of them.” He looked levelly from Marjorie to Robin.

“There is only one can be placed upon it,” Marjorie said tranquilly. “They are simply obeying Miss Cairns’s orders and pocketing more of her money.”

“That’s it,” nodded Peter Graham. “It will cost her a pretty penny before she is through with the affair. I’d like to know how long this business was brewing before it came to a head. Neither Thorne or Foster have been in town for weeks. Conlon, their foreman, is hated by the workmen, especially the Italians. What I can’t understand is the smooth quietness of the whole outrage. They walked out of our employ and into that of Miss Cairns’s like a carefully organized body of strikers. If Miss Cairns managed the walk-out she must have a certain amount of unscrupulous cleverness,” he ended with grudging honestness.

“I haven’t the least doubt but that she managed it,” Robin made indignant assertion. “She has been known to go to great pains to gain her own way. On the campus, when she was a student here, she had a reputation for that sort of thing.” Robin’s information was meant to be impersonal. It was Peter Graham’s right to know Leslie Cairns’ measure as a mischievous force.

Marjorie had listened to Robin and the builder, her mind weighing every word she heard. As Robin finished with an angry little sputtered: “Oh, will we ever be free of that Jonah?” the gravity of Marjorie’s beautiful face changed to meditative resolution.

“Mr. Graham,” she said, “when first you told me of this I was really dismayed for a few minutes. I can understand how you feel in the matter. It is far harder on you than on us. Still, you know, and Page and Dean know, that nothing is going to stop us from finishing the dormitory outside God’s will. I am sure we have that. We are building toward good, not evil. I suppose we couldn’t get these men we’ve lost back again, no matter how hard we tried. They’ve gone the way of more money. We paid them all we can afford or will pay in future. We must not needlessly increase the dormitory obligation for the Travelers who come after our chapter.”

“I wouldn’t advise taking back any of these men at a cent more than we have been paying them. We have given them better wages than they ever before received,” broke in the builder, defensive of the Travelers’ rights. “I am glad we are of the same mind, Miss Dean. And you, Miss Page?” He turned to Robin, relief written large on his strong features.

“What is Page without Dean,” laughed Robin. “What are we both without Graham?” She made a charming gesture of deference which pleased and heartened the white-haired builder.

“Whatever you think wise for us to do, we will do. We rest our case with you, Mr. Graham,” Marjorie’s voice rang with fine loyalty.

“Thank you both for your support,” was the grateful response. “Our case will have to rest,” he continued, his face wonderfully brighter, “until I can secure other workmen to take the places of those gone. It may be a long time before I can collect another force like the one we had. They were able fellows, and knew their business. I warn you, the dormitory cannot be completed in time for the re-opening of college next fall unless we should have the good fortune to find a new crew of men at once. That is the situation.”

“We accept it with good grace.” Marjorie’s kindly cheeriness did much to lighten the secret dejection of the builder. “Don’t worry over it, Mr. Graham. We sha’n’t. We have had trouble with Leslie Cairns before. On each occasion she has been a loser. We have gone on, the stronger for experience. We shall rise above this vicissitude, just as we have risen above the others. Leslie Cairns never seems even to do wrong successfully.”