Part 3 (1/2)

”You can make up your minds that I don't intend ever to serve on any reform committees--object, the betterment of the heathen; the Sans, I mean.” Jerry made this announcement with a shade of belligerence.

Unconsciously she turned her eyes toward Marjorie.

Marjorie laughed. ”I know what you are thinking, Jeremiah,” she said, with quiet amazement. ”Don't worry. I shall not suggest a reform movement here for the Sans' moral benefit.”

”Glad of it. Imagine me laboring patiently with that benighted heathen, Leslie Cairns, to help her to see herself as others see her,” grumbled Jerry.

”How much the Sans would enjoy being called the heathen,” interposed Katherine Langly.

”It's appropriate. When people behave like savages, they cla.s.s themselves as such. It is a pity that we should be obliged to consider fellow students as enemies!” Jerry continued with vehemence. ”Why should petty spite be carried to the point where it is a menace to the whole college? An inst.i.tution for the higher education of young girls in particular should be free of such ign.o.bility.”

”Fights and fusses are not conducive to the cultivation of a scholarly mind,” Helen Trent agreed with mock solemnity.

”They are not,” returned Leila, with a strong Celtic inflection of which she, in her earnestness, was entirely unconscious.

Naturally it evoked laughter. Leila's occasional slight lapses into a brogue were invariably amusing to her chums.

”Laugh at my brogue if you wish, I will not break your bones,” she said good-humoredly, making use of an ancient Irish expression. ”I am most Celtic when serious. Ah, well! Perhaps it is petty in us even to be discussing the Sans, since we can say nothing good of them.”

”That is their fault; not ours,” Lucy Warner said incisively.

”The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in their stars, but in themselves, that they are underlings,” Vera aptly applied with a change of p.r.o.nouns.

”Quite right, my child. They began it. Not one of us, before the Lookouts came here to Hamilton, raised a voice against the Sans. We know the Lookouts did not. This letter Leslie Cairns wrote to Jerry means war to the knife, all this year. Unless, by good fortune, Miss Remson has won her point and they are not to come back to the Hall. With them out of Wayland Hall we might hope for peace. Put them in other campus houses, they would soon lose track of you girls and turn their bad attentions to or on someone else. Miss Remson has a strong case against them on account of the way they treated Marjorie.” Such was Helen's opinion.

Marjorie flushed at mention of the Sans' bad treatment of herself. She glanced at Ronny, who returned the glance with an enigmatical smile.

Leila was staring at Marjorie, her face also a study.

”Girls,” Marjorie began, in her clear resonant enunciation, ”I shall have to tell you something that only Ronny and Leila know. I told Leila only this afternoon. I asked Miss Remson not to mention the Sans'

treatment of me in her complaint to the president. I had a long talk with her last June before college closed. I asked Ronny if she cared if I did so, because she had gone to the trouble of getting Miss Archer here and spared no pains to help me. All of you helped me, too, but Ronny and Miss Remson did the hardest part. Ronny said I must do whatever my conscience dictated. I felt that I did not wish to have anything to do with their leaving the Hall. If Miss Remson wins or has won her point against them, that's different. Last March, before we held the meeting in the living room, it seemed as if I could not endure being under the same roof with them. That feeling pa.s.sed away. They were so utterly defeated. Miss Remson says she has enough insubordinate and really lawless acts on their part against them to warrant their being transferred to another campus house. She said it had been done occasionally in past years with beneficial results.”

”That means the Sans will be at the Hall again this year.” Resentment burned briefly in Helen's eyes. Slow to anger, she was slower to forgive.

”We don't know that yet,” resumed Ronny. ”All this happened last June.

Miss Remson made her complaint then, I believe. She intended to, at any rate. Naturally, we could not ask her about the result, and she said nothing more about it before we went home. I think she will mention it to Marjorie and me. If she does we will ask if we may tell you girls who were interested in the affair of last March.”

”We'll know anyway, if the Sans appear bag and baggage,” put in practical Lucy.

”Yes; but I mean Miss Remson will tell us the details,” returned Ronny.

”Wherever the Sans live on the campus, our best way is to go on about our own affairs regardless of them. I hate to think of Hamilton College as a battle ground. I will fight for my rights, if I must, but I will ignore a worthless enemy as long as I can. We must make our plans for a happier Hamilton, which does not include the Sans. We must create a spirit of unity here that will discount cliques.” Marjorie argued with deep earnestness. ”If we fight, shoulder to shoulder, for the best, in time we shall attain it. It's our influence that will count. It may not be felt at once; gradually it will be. We need not expect the Sans will change their views. We must put them in the background by being true and kindly and honorable. Then their false standards will count for nothing.”

CHAPTER IV.

AN INVITATION TO AN ”OFFICE PARTY.”

”I'm very, very sleepy, Jeremiah, but I shall try to keep awake for the chimes. It would be unkind not to greet my second friend tonight.”

Marjorie made these whimsical statements between yawns.

”Wait for 'em, then, if you can,” returned Jerry. ”The minute my head touches the pillow I shall be dead to the world. You'll never keep awake. You are yawning now.”