CHAPTER XI--A PATCHED-UP FRIENDSHIP

"A guilty conscience need no accuser." Elizabeth Walbert was well aware that she had been guilty of great discourtesy to Augusta Forbes. She had no intention of admitting it, though. Meeting Augusta in the lavatory the following morning, she fixed her large blue eyes on the freshman in simulated reproach.

"Where did you go to last night?" she coolly inquired. "Just before the hop ended I hunted all over for you."

Augusta turned a stony face toward her. "Did you, indeed? You amaze me," she said with biting sarcasm. "So you took that much trouble? _Sorry!_ Since you did not concern yourself about me earlier in the evening, it doesn't matter whether or not you know where I went."

"Why, Augusta!" exclaimed Elizabeth with a rising inflection. "What on earth is----"

"Miss Forbes, if you please," cut in Gussie sharply. "I wish you to know that I think you the rudest, most discourteous person in the whole world. You slighted me last night and I resented it. I resent it still. I was invited to the frolic by a really fine girl; I am sorry she did not invite me first. All my chums had a splendid time. Thanks to you, I didn't. _They_ did not wish me to accept your invitation, for they don't approve of you. I stood up for you and accepted. Of course, then, I did not go near them. I depended on you to introduce me to other girls, and you paid hardly any attention to me after we were inside the gym. You----"

"Don't be so silly," pettishly interrupted Elizabeth. "I----"

"Truth is never silly," Gussie flashed back. She had said her say in low enough tones so that they were attracting no attention from the two girls at the other end of the lavatory. "Now forget that you ever spoke to me. I've forgotten already that I ever met you. Good morning."

Gussie marched out of the lavatory, head held high, leaving Elizabeth red-faced and angry. This was the beginning of war between the two. Not since Leslie Cairns had scored her for her treachery that day on the campus had Elizabeth been thus arraigned. She spitefully resolved to make Gussie a mark for ridicule at Hamilton. She could do it. Was she not a junior? As for Augusta, she was nothing but a big, stupid freshie!

Elizabeth had awakened that morning quite out of sorts. Her eagerness to cling to Alida and Lola at the frolic had lost her much of the evening's pleasure. The two seniors had declared the frolic "an awful bore." They had danced but little, preferring to sit back and criticize. Though they had called her to join them early in the evening and had been more friendly than for a long time, toward the close of the frolic they simply drifted away from her. So cleverly did they manage she was not aware until afterward that they had deliberately dropped her. It hurt her vanity, but not her feelings.

To discover that Gussie had decamped did not add to her peace of mind. She determined not to attend any more college entertainments. They were stupid and silly. Anything Elizabeth disapproved usually went under this ban. Her head aching from a repast of two chocolate eclairs and a nougat bar, eaten after she came from the frolic, Elizabeth decided to cut her classes that day. She would take two headache powders, sleep until noon, and go for a long ride in the afternoon. All this she planned after her tilt with Augusta.

Shortly before two o'clock that afternoon she went to the garage for her car and was soon speeding toward the town of Hamilton. Her object was a trip to Breton Hill, a village twenty miles south of Hamilton. First she planned to stop in Hamilton and eat a light luncheon.

Wavering between the Lotus and the Ivy, she finally went to the Ivy. Twenty minutes after she entered the tea shop, a girl drove by in a roadster. Her glance resting on a familiar blue and buff car, she smiled sourly, drove on for perhaps a block, then came back and parked her roadster in front of the Ivy. Leaving her car in slow, deliberate fashion, she sauntered up the wide stone walk and into the shop. One swift survey of the room showed her Elizabeth Walbert at a side table. She stood for a moment, her eyes narrowing, then walked boldly to where Elizabeth sat and took the vacant chair opposite her.

The latter looked up from her plate and encountered Leslie Cairns' eyes. Elizabeth was genuinely surprised. Leslie pretended to be.

"Where--why Leslie Cairns!" stammered the unsuspecting junior.

"This _is_ a surprise, Miss Walbert!" Leslie returned in not quite friendly tones.

"I see you are angry with me still, Leslie," she said plaintively. "You blamed me for saying a lot of things I never said. I heard Dulcie was the cause of your--er--trouble last year. She wrote me after she left Hamilton. I didn't answer her letter."

"Oh, forget it." Leslie made an indifferent gesture. "What's done can't be undone. You were wise not to write to Dulcie. She was the most treacherous little reptile I ever knew. How's college?"

"Oh, so, so. I am at Wayland Hall now. It is full of freshies. Miss Harper and Miss Mason are there again. So are Miss Merrick and Miss Trent. Four P. G's at Wayland."

"Four N. G's, you mean," corrected Leslie bitterly. "I heard they were back. I met Lola and Alida not long ago."

"You _did_? They never said a word about it to me. I was with them a long time last night, too. The sophs gave their dance last night. Hateful things! They might have told me. I think Lola is _so_ selfish!" Elizabeth pouted her displeasure.

"Selfish! You are right about that. She is." Leslie spoke with sudden energy. "She winds Alida around her finger."

"Of course." Elizabeth leaned forward, her interest rising. It was good to see Leslie again. Leslie never cared what she said about others.

The waitress approaching, Leslie ordered a luncheon which she did not want, then turned her attention to her companion again.

"Tell me the college news; everything you can think of," she commanded. "I'm visiting an aunt in town. Don't know just how long I shall be here. That's all there is to tell about me. But _you_ must really have news."

"Oh, there isn't much going on, as yet. I'll tell you about the frolic first." Elizabeth recounted the affair from her viewpoint. From that she went from one bit of campus gossip to another.

Leslie listened, careful not to interrupt. She was tactfully pursuing a certain course.

"Do you know anything about this students' beneficiary business that Bean and her beanstalks organized last year, Bess?" she finally asked with a careless air. "I heard Lola mention it the day I saw her. I didn't care to ask her about it. Last year, just before the Sans were fired from Hamilton, I heard the organizers were going to take up a collection among themselves to create a scholarship fund or something like that. I thought I might like to contribute, if I knew just what it was all about. I'd do it anonymously. I wouldn't for worlds let anyone but you know. Do you think you could find out all about it for me?"

"Certainly," was the ready promise. Re-established thus easily in Leslie's favor, Elizabeth was feeling elated. To be entrusted with this commission meant she would see Leslie often. Loyal to no one, she had liked Leslie better than the majority of girls she had known.

"I know a freshie at Acasia House who is quite friendly with Miss Laird. Bean, as you call her, is a great friend of Miss Laird's. I think this freshman could get the information from Miss Laird. She is clever."

"Ask her then, and I will appreciate it and do something for you in return. Above all, Bess, don't mention this to a soul. If you do, I'll know it. In spite of the way I was treated I have a wish to do something for old Hamilton." Leslie put on a becomingly serious expression.

"I won't tell," promised the other girl. "It is fine in you to feel so about Hamilton. I should call it true nobility of spirit. You weren't understood in college, Leslie."

"No, I wasn't." Leslie sighed her make-believe regret. She had begun to enjoy the part she was now playing.

The two did not leave the tea room for over an hour after meeting. When they emerged to the street each was satisfied with what she had gained from the other. They had agreed to meet the next Wednesday at four o'clock at the Ivy.

"How are you getting along as a driver?" Leslie asked, not without a smile as she sighted Elizabeth's brightly painted car. It was reminiscent of last year's disasters.

"Oh, very well. I've always told you that I could keep the road if people would keep out of my way. Every near accident I've ever had has been the fault of someone else's poor driving."

To this airy, self-exonerative statement Leslie made no response save by a twist of her loose-lipped mouth. She was very near derisive laughter. Elizabeth, blandly complacent, did not notice her companion's peculiar expression.

"Let me give you one piece of advice, Bess," she said brusquely. "Get through with that giddy blue and tan car of yours. It is a dead give-away. One can recognize it a mile away. You think you are O. K. as a driver. You're not. Don't deceive yourself. You can't put it over me. I know your style of driving and it's punk. Why don't you learn to drive?"

"Oh, I don't know," Elizabeth bridled. "I like my car blue. Blue is my color." She ignored Leslie's fling at her driving abilities.

"It will be your finish some day; on that car, I mean. Get a black car. You need a new one. This one is passé. You could have it painted black, but what's the use? Trade this one in on a new machine. Maybe you'll do better driving a new car."

"Perhaps you are right. I think my father will let me have a new machine." Possession of a brand new car appealed to vain Elizabeth.

"I _know_ I'm right. Suppose you were to have trouble along the pike as you had with that driver last year. If anyone reported you the tag that gave you away would be: 'The student I mean was driving a blue and buff car.'" Leslie imitated to perfection a high, complaining voice. "With a black car you could simply scud away from trouble and no one would remember how you looked. What?"

"You are right, Leslie," Elizabeth reluctantly conceded. "I never before looked at the matter in that light."

Leslie was tempted to reply, "That was because you were too stupidly vain of your gay, blue ice wagon." She refrained. Discretion warned her to allow matters to rest as they were. She had no desire to arouse resentment in the shallow, but tricky, junior. Her advice concerning a change of cars was sound and she knew it. While Leslie had neither liking nor faith in Elizabeth Walbert, she needed her services. She thought she had learned by past bitter experience precisely how to manage Elizabeth.