CHAPTER XVII

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE FROLIC

“Hello, Jewel,” Leslie calmly greeted after a quick glance at the freshman’s anger-dark features.

Without answering the angry girl dashed across the room to her couch bed, flinging herself upon it. Her doubled fists began beating an enraged tattoo upon the pillows, to which her slippered feet kicked themselves in time upon the couch cover. “Oh, oh, oh!” she repeatedly ejaculated in rage-thickened tones. “I’ll never forgive her! Oh, oh, oh!”

The trio of silent spectators to the freshman’s gust of anger could not but exchange significant glances. Into the mind of each had sprung the question: “Had the blow, which Leslie had anticipated, fallen already?”

“Let us go into my room,” Leila proposed tactfully, rising from her chair as she spoke.

“We’ll wait for you there, Leslie.” Marjorie was already following Leila to the door.

“Go ahead.” Leslie’s dark brows raised themselves in indicative despair. “I’ll join you presently.”

“I’m wondering if the prophecy has come true so soon,” were Leila’s first words as they shut themselves into her room. “Sit down, Beauty, and be at home.” Abruptly she dropped into a chair and burst into laughter.

“Never think that I am making a mock of misfortune,” she said presently, a mirthful quiver in her tones. “I’m still thinking of the amazing bounce that midget made into the room. It might well have been that of a circus performer. She little knows the honor in store for her. It seems I have found a star for my play ‘The Leprachaun’ and that without the trouble of seeking.”

“You are a funny old dear, Leila Harper,” Marjorie, girl-like, could not do other than laugh with Leila. “Something harrowing must have happened to Miss Ogden at the frolic to send her away from it in such a tempest. It’s early yet.” Her eyes sought the clock on Leila’s dressing-table. “Only twenty-five minutes to ten. The beauty contest must just have begun. She’s awfully tiny, isn’t she?” she again reverted to the subject of Miss Ogden, “at least two inches shorter than Vera. She’s pretty, I think.”

“She has the prettiness of a child when she is good-natured,” Leila said, “but, oh, my stars, what a temper! Until tonight she has shown nothing of it to Leslie, Vera and me. Vera will not be long in coming now. She promised to slip away from the gym as soon as the contest was over. Grant that before then Leslie will have calmed the storm and reduced the whirlwind to order,” she finished with dry humor.

It was Vera, however, who appeared in the room ahead of Leslie. She dropped into a chair with exaggerated weariness and a long, sighing: “_Such_ a time as there has been tonight, over at the gym. Truly, girls, it was dreadful! Where’s Leslie?” Vera’s quick glance in the direction of Leslie’s room conveyed an inkling of the reason of Leslie’s absence.

“Yes; she is in Fifteen with Miss Ogden,” Leila interpreted the glance, and answered. “Now, for goodness’ sake, Midget, are we to know what it is all about?”

“You are; and this is the tale. There was a _positive tongue_ battle in the gym tonight, just before the beginning of the beauty contest. It looked for a minute as though there might be some actual hand-to-hand fighting done.” Vera gave a faint little chuckle. “The trouble started as the result of an accident to Miss Norris’s gown. During the last fox-trot before the beginning of the beauty walk, Miss Norris was standing near the punch bowl corner, drinking lemonade. The floor of the gym was as slippery as glass. The sophs had put too much wax on it, and there’d been a lot of slipping and sliding done. The girls were having a lot of fun because of it. Miss Ogden and a tall soph, whose name I don’t know yet, were doing a very frisky variation of the trot. The punch bowl was one of those thin lovely tinted glass affairs and stood on a stand the sophs had fixed up and draped with the class colors. Miss Ogden and the soph were going it full speed. In the first place, the stand had been set too far from the wall. Just as the two girls came close to it, Miss Ogden’s feet slipped and the pair crashed into the stand. Over went stand and punch bowl, _simply deluging_ Miss Norris with lemonade.” Vera’s hands went up in horrified recollection of the scene.

“Was ever anything more unfortunate?” Leila turned to Marjorie.

“_Dreadfully_,” Marjorie agreed. She found herself suddenly sympathizing with the small, rage-swept figure she had seen for a moment in Leslie’s room.

“It was an accident. The majority of the girls at the frolic would have accepted it as such, without being peeved, if it had happened to any one of them. Miss Norris was furious over it. It was too bad, of course. She had on a perfectly ducky white satin frock. She really looked beautiful in it, though I think her beauty is of a cold, arrogant type. She is evidently high-tempered, and she lost control of her temper. She fairly screamed out at Miss Ogden: ‘_You’ve ruined my dress, you rough, ill-bred little bounder._’ This, while Miss Ogden was apologizing to her for the accident, and half crying. The beauty line had just begun to form. A good many of the girls fell out of line, mostly the freshies, and hurried over to the wreck. The punch bowl was smashed to smithereens and the stand lay in a big puddle of lemonade. The silk draping was soaked with it. The judges’ platform wasn’t more than a dozen feet away from the smash so we could hear a part of what was being said by the two girls.

“I felt sorry for Miss Ogden. She tried to keep her temper, even after Miss Norris had spoken so insultingly to her. She merely clenched her hands and repeated: ‘I’m more sorry than I can say, Miss Norris; I’m more than ready to pay for your damaged gown. I know it’s imported, but I’ll be glad to—’ Miss Norris answered in the most hateful way, ‘_You_—You show your ill-breeding in suggesting such a thing. You are simply impossible.’

“Miss Ogden couldn’t stand that so she blazed out: ‘_You_ didn’t seem to regard me as impossible when you asked me to electioneer for you. _You_, not _I_, are ill-bred!’ Miss Norris positively shrieked, ‘_How dare you insult me?_ You know you haven’t spoken truthfully.’ Six or seven of Miss Norris’s crowd joined in then, and they all turned upon Miss Ogden. Then there began such a chorus of gabbling, I couldn’t distinguish much that was being said. Some of Miss Ogden’s friends joined the fuss and began to defend _her_. She was in the middle of the crowd, wild with rage, telling them all what she thought of them. The whole fuss hardly occupied more than five minutes’ time. Miss Elgin, the soph president, hurried over to me and said: ‘Come and help me stop this fuss, _please_, Miss Mason. It’s disgraceful!’ I told her to come up on the platform and order the beauty line to reform instantly, saying that, otherwise, the contest would be declared off.”

Vera laughed softly. “You should have seen the mob break up. Five minutes later the line was strolling around the gym, as decorously as could be. I don’t know what became of either Miss Norris, or Miss Ogden. Neither was in the beauty line, naturally. Most of Miss Norris’s crowd were. It sounds uncharitable, but I’m convinced that Miss Norris hoped to win in the contest. She wouldn’t have, though, even if her gown hadn’t been damaged. Miss Burke, a dormitory freshie, won it. She was the most beautiful girl in the line. The dorms gave her a great send-off. I beat it for the Hall the moment after Doris delivered the adjuration to Beauty, but I could still hear the girls cheering until I was half way across the campus.”

“Miss Ogden is in her room. Leslie is with her,” Leila informed Vera. “She came in in a fine flurry. We fled, knowing we had best leave her to Leslie.”

“She has my sympathy. It was not only ill-bred, but also unkind in Miss Norris to make such a scene because of an accident,” was Vera’s slightly contemptuous opinion. “If this fuss had occurred before the class election she would never have won the presidential vote.”

“She’s made a bad start at Hamilton,” Marjorie said soberly. “She’s taken the wrong road, and no one but herself can put her on the right one again. If only she could be made to see it.”

“It is like you, Beauty, to mourn over the ill-doer, and for that we have loved you. Leslie is what she is today because you believed she had a better self. It is yet too young in the college year to say what beneficial changes may come, if any, to Miss Norris. If she has a better self,” Leila’s tone had become sceptical, “I am afraid she will be put to considerable trouble to find it. I know I shall take no pains to point it out to her.”

“Shall you ask her to be in Henry the Fifth after what happened tonight?” Marjorie inquired half mischievously.

“_Now_ you _are_ asking me something.” Leila’s wide smile broke out. “I might be doing better were I to ask her to play ‘Kate’ in ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’”

The entrance of Leslie into the room turned the attention of the three girls in her direction.

“What happened at the gym, Vera?” she asked as she drew a chair forward and joined the group.

“Then she hasn’t yet come out of it?” Vera opened questioning blue eyes.

“Oh, she has, to the extent of saying there was a scrap at the gym, and that she hates Miss Norris. That’s the part she keeps on emphasizing to me. She’s so sore over whatever happened tonight at the gym that she can’t see straight. She promised to spill the news to me tomorrow. I didn’t stop to quiz her about it. I thought you’d know, perhaps.”

Vera recounted briefly what she had already told Leila and Marjorie.

“_Good night_,” was Leslie’s slangily forceful reception of Vera’s account of the evening’s accident. “No wonder the kid is sore. Some one ought to send Miss Norris a book of etiquette for social occasions with a few choice paragraphs underlined. Leave it to Muriel to do it, if she were here. I wonder if Miss Norris is worse than I used to be?” she pondered aloud. “I believe she _is_. I doubt if, in the same circumstances, I’d have raised a commotion in public about getting a lemonade shower-bath. Of course, it was the beauty contest that started her going. She’ll never forgive Jewel Marie for being the means of snapping her out of it. The kid says she hates Miss Norris. It looks as though internal war might ramp and rage at Wayland Hall, unless someone with scads of nerve should rise in her might, and put the kibosh on it.”

“You’ve always said _you_ had more nerve than anybody else, Leslie,” Marjorie laughed, yet there was a gleam of earnestness in her brown eyes.

“Yep; I know it. I was just thinking about that myself.” Leslie’s eyes met Marjorie’s in a glance of slow significance.

“While you and Beauty find a plan to make the Hall a safe place for two timid old ladies like Midget and me to live in, I shall brew you a cup of tea, and Midget must lay the plates and bring out the cakes.”

Leila and Vera immediately began to busy themselves with the preparation of a spread, leaving Marjorie and Leslie to the discussion which had seemingly narrowed down to they two.

“This crowd of Miss Norris’s are doing their level best to upset the democratic peace of Wayland Hall,” Leslie said emphatically. “They can’t possibly win in the long run, but they can keep things here disagreeably stirred up, perhaps all year, unless their activities are nipped in the bud. Last year Muriel’s show turned the tide in my favor when Miss Ferguson and Dulcie Vale tried to down me. There was a greater number of girls in the Orchid Club, too. There are twelve of these freshies. One may safely count Mildred Ferguson in with them. Thirteen disturbers to vanquish. Go to it Cairns II. That’s how I feel about it. That’s what Peter the Great would say, if I told _him_ my troubles.”

“You have the same determined spirit I can imagine Brooke Hamilton as having had,” Marjorie reached out, laying a warmly sympathetic hand upon one of Leslie’s. “If I were still living at the Hall as a P. G., you know I would fight shoulder to shoulder with you. But I’m not far away from you. Remember, if you need my help in any way, it shall be yours.”

“You certainly have some imagination.” Leslie indulged in one of her oddly silent laughs. “Thank you for the Brooke Hamilton bouquet, and I’ll know where to come running, if things begin to speed up too much for me.”

“Do you believe these freshies are interested in Hamilton as their Alma Mater?” Marjorie put the question after a meditative silence.

“No; not even a little bit. They’re of the present-moment flapper type, indifferent to everything but their own pleasure. They spend their recreation hours mostly in their cars. They’re not the sort to respond to friendly advances. They’ve been fairly pleasant with the other freshies here. Now that freshie class election is over—” Leslie’s shrug was indicative of her meaning.

“You and Leila are both so clever, Leslie, and you two practically control campus dramatics. If only you could win these girls over by offering them parts in the plays to be given at the Playhouse this winter. It might make them feel more in touch with Hamilton, and awaken in them a new spirit of college interest.” Marjorie’s suggestion rang with her own boundless enthusiasm toward Hamilton.

“Something like that,” Leslie nodded. “Frankly, Marjorie, that New York freshie crowd bores me silly. So does Jewel Marie, at times. But she’s of the people, all democrat underneath her ridiculous idea of caste. I can see where I’m going to run into trouble if I don’t watch my step while trying to win over a bunch of girls that she’s down on. Just the same, Mrs. Macy,” Leslie purposely took on Jerry’s matter-of-fact tone, “_it will have to be done. Yes siree; it will have to be done_, and it’s up to Cairns II to tackle it, _and get away with it_.”