CHAPTER XVIII--BLACK DISAPPOINTMENT

Returned to Hamilton from the Thanksgiving holiday, the most important subject on Marjorie's horizon was that of the real estate transaction she and Robin Page hoped to close with Mr. Cutler. He had stated that the owner of the boarding house properties would be in Hamilton after Thanksgiving. Both she and Robin were impatient to hear from the agent, yet neither felt like forcing matters.

It was over a week after Thanksgiving when Marjorie joyfully pounced upon a letter in the Hall bulletin board, addressed to her, and bearing the agent's printed address in the upper left hand corner. The four typed lines which comprised the letter stated that the owner of the properties in which they were interested would be in Hamilton on the following Monday. Mr. Cutler requested them to call at his office at four o'clock of the succeeding Wednesday afternoon.

"I'll be glad to have this part of our great undertaking settled and off my mind," Marjorie buoyantly told Robin that afternoon as the two girls left Science Hall together. Marjorie had stopped at the Biological Laboratory for Robin in order to acquaint her with the welcome news.

"When we know definitely how much the properties are going to cost us we will have more incentive to go ahead and rush our first show of the season through. Nothing like knowing exactly where one stands, is there?" Robin finished interrogatively.

Marjorie quickly agreed with this statement. Her naturally orderly mind clamored for the suspense to end so that the real work might begin.

"It will be a good thing to have it off our chests by Wednesday," she congratulated. "Saturday's the first freshie-soph game, you know. We will have to be present. I can look forward to enjoying it, with this important question settled."

"Did that Miss Hurst answer your note?" Robin inquired. "I meant to ask you that before and kept forgetting it."

"No, she did not. The team practiced on the Friday after I wrote it. I dropped in purposely to watch those four girls. There were at least fifty students there besides myself. Miss Forbes made a beautiful toss to basket. You should have heard the applause. The four kickers looked miffed but they didn't try any hatefulness with her, so far as I could see. I asked her that evening if matters had improved in that respect and she said they certainly had. I haven't been to practice since Thanksgiving."

"I stopped at the gym yesterday to watch the freshies. Phil was anxious to see them work. Miss Forbes was leading the team, as usual, in fast work. She seemed to be getting along with them very well. Your letter had a potent effect, I guess. I have no patience with small natures." Robin frowned her utter contempt for such marked ignobility.

"Nor I. If Miss Forbes should play a brilliant game on next Saturday she would be established as a star and her team-mates would have to be very careful how they treated her afterward. I hope she does. I believe she will."

With that Marjorie changed the subject by asking Robin to go to the Hall with her and remain to dinner. "We can go a long way toward planning our next entertainment. I imagine a play would be interesting for a starter. Leila makes a fine stage manager. Katherine Langly wrote a romantic play called 'The Maid of Honor.' It is a truly thrilling drama of the English Court during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. During my soph year we talked of giving it. Miss Remson said there was a large cedar chest in the attic of the Hall full of courtier costumes. The students of several years back used them in giving Shakespearian plays." Marjorie's usual resourcefulness came to the surface.

"That would be great!" Robin was all enthusiasm at the proposal. "Katherine Langly ought to become a writer or a playwright or something literary. She has written articles and verses and short stories, so I have heard, just for literary practice. She has never tried to sell one of them. She belongs to the Silver Pen, doesn't she?"

"Yes. She was invited to join it during her freshman year. Think of that! She composed a theme for her English class, and the style was so perfect, Miss Faber read it out to the class," related Marjorie. "Soon after that she was invited to join the Silver Pen. Leila has often spoken of what fine girls some of the seniors were that year. She belongs to the Silver Pen, too. She was invited to join in her soph year."

"Portia belongs," returned Robin. "She is the only one of our crowd who made it. The others of us incline more toward music, I suppose. Phil is thinking of founding a musical sorority. That would be an innovation at Hamilton."

Full of the new project of producing Katherine's play, Marjorie and Robin could not resist going over to Randolph House that evening to see Kathie and ask her permission to their plan. At first she demurred. Finally she went to the trouble of hunting for it in the bottom of her trunk so that Robin might read it. The fact that the two girls desired it as a money-maker for their worthy undertaking carried weight with her. She gave her consent, her only objection having been that it was only "trash" and not good enough for a production in a literary sense.

When Marjorie opened her eyes the following Wednesday, on a cold December morning, her first thought was of her appointment that day. She half dreaded consulting the Hall bulletin board for fear of finding another disappointing letter from the agent. None appeared. She met Robin at half-past two that afternoon. They hailed a taxicab for the town of Hamilton, arriving at Mr. Cutler's office a few minutes before three.

As they were a little early, they were obliged to wait for the agent to finish the business he was transacting with two men. Marjorie drew a long expectant breath as the door to the street closed finally on the agent's masculine callers.

"Will you young ladies please come into my private office?" he said, after greeting them in his courteous fashion. He opened the door for them and stood aside for them to enter.

The trio seated in the inner office, Mr. Cutler faced the two seniors with an expression that vaguely discomfited Marjorie. While she never tried to read the faces of those with whom she came into contact, she had a peculiar sense of divination which rarely failed her. The agent's features betrayed no indication of having pleasant news to offer them. On the contrary they were rather tensely set.

"I am very sorry to tell you," he began, and the hearts of both girls sank, "that the properties which you wished to buy have been sold." He jerked the words out as though anxious to be done with the disheartening information.

"Sold?" came the questioning chorus. Marjorie and Robin stared at Mr. Cutler, then at each other.

"Yes. Let me explain. When I wrote you, Miss Dean, and made the appointment for today, I did not know this. The properties were unsold when Mr. Saxe, the owner, went to Chicago. In fact, there had been no demand for them. The surprising part of the affair is that the purchaser, on learning that Mr. Saxe was in Chicago, went there to see him. I did not furnish the address nor the information concerning these properties. The sale was conducted entirely away from me. The purchaser must have wanted them very much. Mr. Saxe was offered sixty thousand dollars for them. Naturally he accepted, at once."

"_Sixty thousand dollars!_" exclaimed Robin in a wondering tone. "That is a great deal more than we could have paid."

"I asked him what his own price would have been," continued Mr. Cutler. "He put it at forty thousand dollars. Not far, you see, from my estimate. They were purchased by a young woman, a Miss Cairns, I believe her name was. She may have been acting as agent for a private party. I don't know. It is rather a mystery to me--the whole transaction. I was sorry for myself as well," he added whimsically. "It lost me a good fat commission."

Neither Marjorie nor Robin said a word. It had taken not more than an instant's reckoning to decide that "Miss Cairns" must be Leslie Cairns, ex-student of Hamilton College. They knew she had been staying in the town of Hamilton. They knew of no other Miss Cairns.

"She must have known we wanted them!" Robin cried out resentfully, forgetting for a second the agent's presence.

"Did I understand you to say--" Mr. Cutler stopped. He did not in the least understand Robin's remark.

"Then there is no use in our wasting your time, Mr. Cutler," Marjorie said, rising. "We are disappointed, of course. We must look about us for another site. That's all. When we find one we will come to you and have you make the inquiries about it. We shall build our dormitory somewhere in the neighborhood of the campus, some day." She flashed the agent a dauntless little smile.

"It is too bad; too bad," he repeated. "I was greatly interested in your plan. Do either of you, by chance, know this Miss Cairns? The name is unfamiliar to me as of this town."

"We know of her. We do not know her personally. She is a very rich woman, in her own right, I have been told." It was Robin who now made answer.

"Mr. Saxe said she paid cash for the properties," nodded the agent.

"So far as we are concerned, we could have paid the price in cash of sixty thousand dollars. One of our sorority members had offered to finance us. We were to pay the debt to her at leisure. We felt it not right to tax the students-to-come, at Hamilton, with too heavy a burden of debt. We are in our senior year and just starting this movement. We shall appoint certain students to replace us in this work when we have been graduated from Hamilton. They in turn will choose their successors." Marjorie took the trouble to make this explanation because of Mr. Cutler's genuine interest in their venture.

"Well, it is a noble ambition," praised the agent. "I will remember your need and look about me for a suitable site for your dormitory. One never knows what may develop. Now if you could buy that open strip of ground belonging to the Carden estate, it would be ideal for your purpose. The Cardens, those left of the family, are in Europe most of the time. They might decide suddenly to sell their estate. I'll keep you in mind," he assured.

"What do you think of that?" were Robin's first words, spoken out of earshot of the agent.

"What do _you_ think?" countered Marjorie. Her tones bordered on bitterness. She was disturbed far more than she had shown while in the office.

"Just what I said in there." Robin indicated the office with a backward movement of her head. "She knew we wanted them and bought them on purpose to thwart us. She has been in Hamilton since last summer. How did she find out our plan, I wonder?"

"That's a question hard to answer. She must have heard something concerning it last year after our show. It wasn't what one could call a secret. I mean the talk of building a dormitory. What seems queer to me is this. The moment we got in touch with Mr. Cutler, Miss Cairns hurried to Chicago to head off this Mr. Saxe before we could see him. We know Mr. Cutler did not tell her of us. He said he had never met her. She has heard something about it this fall."

"Then she must be friendly and in communication with certain students on the campus," was Robin's conjecture.

"Undoubtedly." Marjorie did not mention what she had observed on her way to mail the letter before the Thanksgiving vacation. It was of no particular use, she reflected. The properties were gone, the subject of them and their present owner might better be entirely dismissed.

"Hateful old snake!" was Robin's wrathful opinion of Leslie Cairns. "The idea of her coming back and living near the college after the disgrace of having been expelled!"

"We'll have to make the best of it. It needn't hinder us from going on and giving our play. The more money we earn, the more of our own we'll have when we find a site. Never say die, Robin. That is the only way to do." Marjorie was recovering from the damper she had lately received. "It will all come out for the best. Remember what I say, and see if it doesn't. Some day we may be very glad we didn't get those properties. That is poor consolation just now, I know."

"Oh, I'm not cast into the depths," Robin replied in a lighter tone. "Nothing worth while is ever gained without a struggle. Leslie Cairns may find one of these days that she'd far rather have her sixty thousand dollars back than be the owner of those properties. I only hope she does."