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CHAPTER VIII
A RETURN TO A FORBIDDEN LAND

“Leslie, is it really you? I’d been wondering why you hadn’t answered my letter. I wrote you soon after I received your note.” Doris Monroe’s indifferent drawl was not in evidence as she answered the telephone. She was surprised and more pleased than she had thought she could possibly be to hear Leslie Cairns’ voice on the wire. Leslie’s arrival in Hamilton meant an immediate brightening of the bored existence Doris had been leading since her return from New York.

“I wrote you I’d surely be here in April,” Leslie brusquely reminded, “and here I am.”

“I’m awfully glad of it.” Doris spoke with pleasing sincerity. “Is Mrs. Gaylord with you?”

“Ye-es.” Leslie drawled the affirmation with exaggerated weariness. “How she does wish she wasn’t. She nearly had a conniption when I told her we were going to make a flying trip to Hamilton. I’ll meet you at the Colonial at four this P. M. You’ll hear more of my history then. Bye.” Leslie was gone.

Doris’s beautiful face was a study as she turned from the telephone. She was a trifle amazed at her distinct pleasure in Leslie’s unexpected arrival at Hamilton. Leslie had been so moodily unbearable after their return from the holiday vacation which they had spent in New York, Doris had felt relieved at the former’s sudden disappearance from Hamilton and the subsequent receipt of Leslie’s brief note from New York.

It was only recently that she had begun to miss Leslie and wish for her society. In spite of her ugly moods Leslie was possessed of an originality which Doris found singularly enlivening. No one could say more oddly funny things than Leslie when she chose to be humorous. Leslie never hesitated to pay extravagantly for whatever she happened to want. Doris admired in her what she considered Leslie’s “adventurous spirit.” She had been brought up to know her father’s explorer friends. They were hardy, intrepid world wanderers of daring. She had listened to their tales of reckless adventuring into the unknown and gloried in the doings of these splendid captains of adventure. There were occasions when it appeared to her that Leslie showed something of the same adventurous, undaunted spirit.

As a matter of truth, Leslie was animated by this very spirit. She had directed it, however, into ignoble channels. What she chose to regard as strategy and daring were nothing other than trickery and lawlessness.

Doris knew little or nothing of Leslie’s flagrant offenses as a student at Hamilton College. She had learned of the latter’s expellment from college from Leslie herself. She had consequently never heard the rights of the affair. She had heard vague stories concerning it from Julia Peyton, Clara Carter and one or two juniors. The knowledge of Leslie’s immense wealth had hampered even their gossip about the ex-student. The freshmen and the sophomores, who were Doris’s chief companions, had entered Hamilton too late to be on the campus at the period before Leslie’s and her chums’ expulsion from college. They, therefore, knew not much about her.

The present junior and senior classes had been respectively the freshman and sophomore classes during Leslie’s senior year at Hamilton, which had been also the year of her expulsion from college. At that particular time the attitude of the two lower classes had been one of horrified disapproval of the seventeen San Soucians who had been expelled from Hamliton for hazing a student. That was almost as much as any of them had ever learned about the affair. The girls who knew the disagreeable truth were Marjorie Dean and her intimates. Silence with them was honor. They knew a great many other derogatory facts about Leslie Cairns and her methods which they kept strictly sub rosa.

Doris was ready to welcome Leslie with warmth. She sorely lacked companions of interest. She had begun to grow bored to satiety by admiration. The freshies’ and sophs’ adoration for her was too superficial to be satisfying. They enjoyed rushing the college beauty. Each class liked to parade her on the campus and fête her at Baretti’s, the Colonial or at their pet Hamilton tea shops as a triumphant class trophy. She was selfish, but not shallow; indifferent, but not vapid. It was in her composition to give as well as receive. Because she had been surfeited with adulation she had lately experienced a vague unrestful desire to turn from the knowledge of her own charms to an admiration of some one else.

First among the students of Hamilton she admired Leila Harper. Robin Page was her second “crush.” Muriel made a third in a trio which had won her difficult fancy. None of these, however, were likely to become her friends. She would never make overtures to them. She was confident that they would never make further friendly advances to her.

Such a state of mind on her part augured a hearty welcome for Leslie. Doris hurried to her room after her last afternoon class, hastily got into the new fawn English walking suit, recently arrived from a Bond Street shop, and made a buoyant exit from the Hall and to the garage for the white car. It was a clear, sunshiny day. She thought Leslie might like to take a ride in the Dazzler. Leslie had probably hired a taxicab in which to come from town to the Colonial.

It was a very short distance from the garage to the Colonial. Arrived there, Doris saw a solitary car parked in front of the restaurant. It was a black roadster of newest type and most expensive make. She jumped to an instant conclusion that it must belong to Leslie.

Doris parked the Dazzler behind the roadster and went into the tea room to meet Leslie. She found her seated at one of the several square mission oak tables engaged in a languid perusal of a menu card.

“How are you, Goldie? Have a seat at the table and a bite with yours truly.” Leslie waved Doris into the chair opposite her. Then she stretched an arm lazily across the table and offered Doris her hand.

“Very well, thank you, Leslie. How have you been getting along?” Doris returned, with only a shade of her usual drawl. “I am glad to see you. I have missed you.”

“A good miss.” Leslie shrugged an accompaniment to her laconic comment. “Were you surprised to hear me on the ’phone?”

“Of course. I was surprised when you wrote me from New York. I had no idea you had left Hamilton. I was afraid of being conditioned in math. I was studying like mad and hadn’t time just then to call you on the telephone at the hotel. I knew you were very busy.” So far as she went Doris was truthful.

“Oh, forget it. I believe what you say, Goldie, but you might have added that you were all fed up with me. I know I had a beastly grouch after the New York trip. It had teeth and claws. I had business trouble. That sneaking carpenter who is trying to swing the dormitory job for Bean and her precious Beanstalks coaxed all my men over to the Beggar Ranch. He told them a lot of fairy stories, I suppose. Anyway, I had to send for one of my father’s best men, an Italian financier, who understands Italian peasants. Even he couldn’t undo the mischief that scamp, Graham, had done.

“I finally had to send for my father. He fired the whole shooting match. I’m done with that garage flivver. My father said it wouldn’t pay me very well in the end. He was sore at me for wasting my time around this burg. He tried to make me promise I’d go to New York and never think about Hamilton again. He can’t stand the college since the precious Board gave me such an unfair deal.”

“Why, that’s dreadful, Leslie; about your garage I mean.” Doris had a certain amount of sympathy for Leslie. She was not specially interested in business, but she decided that Leslie had been badly treated.

“I’ll say it is,” Leslie made grim response. “Oh, never mind. I’m still worth a few dollars. Did you see my new car out in front?”

“Yes – I had an idea that car must belong to you. It suggested you to me at first sight.” Doris smiled across the table at her returned friend. “I had no idea you’d have a car. I brought the Dazzler on purpose. I thought we might like to take a ride.”

“Gaylord and I came here from New York in that car,” Leslie informed with an inflection of pride. “My father doesn’t know I’m here. He sailed for Europe last Thursday. I know positively that he went, too. I was at the dock and saw his steamer cut loose from Manhattan.”

“Were you?” Doris exhibited her usual polite reticence regarding Leslie’s father. Long since she had discovered that Leslie did not like to answer questions about him. “It is rather a long drive from New York, isn’t it. Your motor coat and hat are chic.”

“So is your suit. I suppose it floated straight across the pond to you. My coat came from the Clayham, in New York. But it’s some bang-up English shop, now let me tell you.” Leslie showed brightening satisfaction of her own greenish-gray motor coat and round hat of the same material.

Leslie’s own remarks about her father were “fairy stories” so far as her having seen him entered into them. She had not seen him, nor had she received any letters from him other than the peremptory one in which he had scathingly reprimanded her and ordered her to New York. Nevertheless she had seen him sail for Europe in the “Arcadia,” though he had not known of her presence on the dock when the steamer cleared.

She had gone to the dock in a cheap tan rain-coat, a red worsted Tam o’Shanter cap and a pair of shell-rimmed glasses. Mingling with the crowd on the dock she was confident her disguise was effective. Her father’s manager, Mr. Carrington, had furnished her with the information of the date and hour of her father’s departure for Europe. She had not seen him since the day when she had called at her father’s offices. Neither had he seen her father for more than a few minutes at a time during which no mention of Leslie had been made. He had been led by her to believe that she had planned a pleasant steamer surprise for her father. He had therefore kept his own counsel and his promise to Leslie. He had sent her a note to the Essenden which had been duly forwarded to her new address.

“I should think you’d rather be in New York than here.” Doris gave a half envious sigh. “There’s nothing here of interest off the campus.”

“Oh, I had to come here while Peter the Great was away.” Leslie volunteered this much of an explanation of her visit. “I must get a line on what was done on the garage so I’ll know just how much money I put into it. My father will want to know that right off the bat if he offers it for sale as it stands. You and I will have some bully rides and drives while I’m here, Goldie. I shan’t be such a grouch as I was right after Christmas. How are things at the knowledge shop? How is Bean? Had any fusses with her or her Beanstalks lately?” Leslie’s expression grew lowering as she mentioned Marjorie.

“Miss Dean and Miss Macy aren’t at Wayland Hall now. They’re staying at Hamilton Arms. I don’t know whether they are coming back to the Hall again or not.” Doris had expected the information might elicit surprise from her companion. She smiled in faint amusement of Leslie’s astonished features, then added the crowning bit of news. “Miss Dean was chosen by Miss Hamilton to write Brooke Hamilton’s biography.”

CHAPTER IX
A WILD PLAN

“What-t? Do you know what you’re saying?” Leslie’s tones rose higher.

“I ought to know. I’ve heard nothing else since she left the Hall for Hamilton Arms.” Doris’s tone was the acme of weariness. “It wouldn’t have been surprising to hear that President Matthews had been asked to write Brooke Hamilton’s biography,” she continued. “The idea of Miss Dean as his biographer is, well —ridiculous.”

“It’s pure bosh,” Leslie said contemptuously. “She’s a tricky little hypocrite. She’s managed to curry favor with that wizened old frump at Hamilton Arms. The last of the Hamiltons! She looks it. I heard when I was at Hamilton that she was sore at the college; that she had all the dope for Brooke Hamilton’s biography but wouldn’t come across with it. I presume Bean slathered her with deceitful sweetness until she grew dizzy with her own importance and renigged.”

“I don’t like Miss Dean.” Doris’s fair face clouded. “I’m glad she’s not at the Hall any longer. Miss Harper and her other friends don’t appear to miss her much, or Miss Macy either. They have parties in one another’s rooms almost every night.”

“They have found they can live without her,” was Leslie’s satiric opinion. “You certainly have handed me news, Goldie.”

“Oh, that’s only a beginning,” Doris declared, well pleased with Leslie’s appreciation. “The other night Miss Dean and Miss Macy were at the Hall to dinner. Afterward they were in Miss Harper’s room with their crowd. They had a high old time talking and laughing. I could hear them, but not very plainly. They were planning shows, though. Since then a notice for a piano recital, featuring Candace Oliver, a freshie musical genius, has appeared on all the bulletin boards. Since that notice there has come another of an Irish play by Miss Harper. It’s to be given in May. The name of the play and the cast hasn’t yet been announced. Miss Harper is awfully tantalizing. She always waits until campus curiosity is at fever height about her plays before she gives out any more information.”

“She’s a foxy proposition.” Leslie showed signs of growing sulkiness. Her earlier affability had begun to wane at first mention of Marjorie Dean. Next to Marjorie, Leila Harper was registered in her black books.

“She’s clever, Leslie; not foxy,” Doris calmly corrected. She went on to tell Leslie of the part Leila had asked her to play in “The Knight of the Northern Sun.”

Leslie’s deep-rooted jealousy of the two girls who were college successes where she had been a rank failure rushed to the surface. “Leila Harper has nerve to ask you to be in a play when she knows you are a friend of mine. I see her game. She knows just how useful you can be to her in her confounded old play. It’s some feather in her theatre bonnet to keep the college beauty at her beck and call. She has planned to break up our friendship by flattering you into believing you are a dramatic wonder. Bean is probably back of Harper’s scheme. She can’t and never could bear to see me enjoy myself.”

Leslie jerked out the final sentence of her tirade against Leila with angry force. Her face had darkened in the jealous way which invariably reminded Doris of the driving of thunder clouds across a graying sky.

“Miss Harper was impersonal in asking me to be in the play,” Doris defended. The sea shell pink in her cheeks had deepened perceptibly. “She dislikes me. I know she wants me in the cast because she thinks I’d be a feature. You see I’m the true Norse type. The heroine of the play is a Norse princess. I want to be in the play because I like to be in things. I’ll enjoy the praise and the excitement. I may go on the English stage when I have been graduated from Hamilton. My father would not object if I were to play in a high class London company.”

“The same old Goldie who cares for nobody but herself.” Leslie gave vent to a sarcastic little snicker. “Why not take up with Bean, too?”

“Oh, Leslie, don’t be hateful,” Doris said with an air of resigned patience. “You know I detest Miss Dean. Nothing could induce me to take up with her. It’s different with Miss Harper. She’s not American, you know. She is so cosmopolitan in manner. She is really more my own style. But, of course, she’s hopelessly devoted to that Sanford crowd of girls.”

“Don’t mention Sanford to me. I hate the name of that collection of one-story huts,” Leslie exploded fiercely. “You ought to detest Bean, considering the way she has treated me. If she had been half as square as she pretends to be she would have put the kibosh on old Graham, just like that, when he began hiring my men away from my architects. My father said the whole business was a disgrace. He said there was no use in my trying to buck against an institution. That’s what Bean’s pull amounts to. She has both Prexy and that ancient Hamilton relict to back her.”

“If Miss Dean knew that her architect was hiring your men away from your architects, and ignored the fact for her own business interests then she must be thoroughly dishonorable,” Doris said flatly.

“If – if – There you go,” sputtered Leslie, wagging her head, her shaggy eye-brows drawn together. “No ‘if’ about it. She knew. You talk as though you wanted to believe her honorable. Well, she isn’t, never was; never will be. It makes me furious to think that she should go nipping around the campus as a college arc light while I wasn’t even allowed a look at a sheepskin. Too bad I couldn’t have learned some of her pretty little dodges. I’d have been able to slide out of the hazing racket. I’ll tell you something you don’t know. Bean could have helped us when the Board sent for her by refusing to go to Hamilton Hall to the inquiry. Not Bean. She went, and made such a fuss about pretending she didn’t care to talk that it made us appear ten times as much to blame as we really were.”

“If – ” Doris hastily checked herself. “She seems to have tried her best to down you, Leslie. But, why?” Her green eyes directed themselves upon Leslie with a disconcerting steadiness.

Leslie gave a short laugh. “I used to ask myself that,” she replied with a sarcastic straightening of her lips. “Now I understand her better. She was jealous and wanted to be the whole show, all the time. She is deep as a well. Take my word for it. I know her better than I wish I knew her.” She shook her head with slow effective regret.

“I’ll surely remember what you’ve said about her.” Doris meant what she said. She had been distinctly shocked at both instances which Leslie had cited of Marjorie Dean’s treachery. What she desired most now was that Leslie should drop the discussion of her grievances.

This Leslie was not ready to do. She continued on the depressing topic for several more minutes. Then she began asking Doris questions concerning the subject of Brooke Hamilton’s biography. Doris knew only what she had already imparted to Leslie concerning it.

“None of the students know the details concerning it except Miss – I mean, the Travelers,” she finally said desperately. She stopped short of mentioning Marjorie’s name again. She did not care to start Leslie anew. “I imagine there really isn’t much else to know besides what I’ve already told you.”

“Don’t you ever believe it,” was the skeptical retort. “But I don’t blame you, Goldie, for what you don’t know.”

“Thank you.” Doris shrugged satiric gratitude. Glad to turn the conversation into a lighter strain she continued gaily: “We’re soon going to have a general lark on the campus. The whole college crowd is to be in it. It’s to be a ‘Rustic Romp.’ One-half of the girls are to dress up as country maids; the other half as country swains. In order to be sure of an even number of couples each student has to register her choice as maid or swain. If not enough girls register as swains then some of the maids will have to change their minds and do duty as gallants. Miss Evans, a rather nice senior, has charge of the registration. And it’s to be a masquerade!” Doris’s exclamation contained pleased anticipation.

“Wonderful.” Leslie chose to be derisive. Underneath envious interest prompted her to ask; “Whose fond, fertile flight of foolishness was that? Mickie Harper’s or Pudge and Beans?”

“I don’t know whose inspiration it was. Probably the seniors had the most to do with it.” Doris again steered the talk toward peaceful channels.

“Hm-m.” Leslie glanced at Doris, then at the luncheon which the waitress was now placing before them on the table. She gazed abstractedly at the appetizing repast. Her eyes traveled slowly back to Doris. Suddenly she broke into one of her fits of silent, hob-goblin merriment. “I think I’ll attend that hayseed carnival myself,” she announced in a tone of defiant boldness.

CHAPTER X
CLAIMING A PROMISE

“What do you mean?” Slightly mystified for an instant it then broke upon Doris that Leslie was in earnest. She was actually entertaining a wild idea of attending the coming romp behind the shelter of a mask. “You couldn’t do that – er – it would be – unwise,” she stammered. Dismay flashed into her green eyes.

“Why couldn’t I?” The question vibrated with obstinacy. “Who except you would know me?”

“U-m-m; no one would know you while you were masked, I suppose. When it came time to unmask – ”

“I’d not be in the gym at unmasking time,” Leslie interrupted decisively. “I’d be out of that barn and away before the signal came to unmask.”

Doris eyed Leslie doubtfully. Her first shock of dismay at the announcement had subsided. She was still swayed by caution as she said slowly: “It would be awfully risky for you. At the Valentine masquerade no one knew when the call to unmask was coming. That’s the way it will be at the romp.”

“At the Valentine masquerade when I was at Hamilton the time for unmasking was nine-thirty.” The corners of Leslie’s wide mouth took on an ugly droop.

“I know that is the way it used to be,” Doris hastily re-assured. “At the last masquerade the freshies asked the junior committee to make the unmasking time a surprise. It proved to be a lot of fun. It will be done again this time. I’m almost sure it will.”

“What if it should be? Don’t imagine that I can’t watch my step. I’d not be caught.”

“Suppose you were dancing when the call to unmask came? You’d have to leave your partner instantly and run like a deer for the door. Suppose you were caught on the way to the door and unmasked by a crowd of girls? The freshies are terrors at that sort of thing. They are always out for tom-boy fun. You’d not care to have such an embarrassing thing happen to you.” Doris chose to present to Leslie a plain supposition of what might happen to her as an uninvited masker at the romp.

“Leave it to me to make a clever get-away,” was Leslie’s boast. “I’d be safe for five or six dances. That would be as long as I’d care to stay in the gym. It’s wearing a hayrick costume that strikes me as having some pep to it. The adventure of breaking into the knowledge shop and enjoying myself under the noses of Prigville, without any of the inhabitants knowing who I am, appeals to me.”

Unwittingly she had appealed to the side of Doris most in sympathy with her bold plan. Doris had been born and bred to understanding and approval of adventure. “I understand the way you feel about it, Leslie,” she began. “If I were certain that – ”

“Oh, forget that I mentioned dressing up to you!” Leslie exclaimed with savage impatience. “You’ve said more than once that you’d be pleased to do anything you could for me, at any time. I thought you would help me a little to play this joke on Prigville. Never mind. I’ll ask only one thing of you. If you should happen to recognize me on the night of the haytime hobble, kindly don’t publish it among the prigs.”

“Leslie.” Doris put dignified reproach into the response. “You know I would never betray you. I’m perfectly willing to help you carry out your plan, provided there’s no danger to either of us in it.”

“Danger of what?” came the sarcastic question. “No danger to you. Let me do a little supposing. Suppose we went together to the gym; you as a maid, and I as your swain. Suppose I failed to make a get-away and was unmasked by a bunch of smart Alecs. I’d probably not be near you when the signal came to unmask. I’d not bother you after the grand march. There’d be so many hey Rubes in the gym no one would remember our coming in together. That lets you out, doesn’t it? You should falter. Have a heart, Goldie!” Leslie had grown satirically persuasive.

Doris sat studying the situation in silence. She had colored afresh at Leslie’s pointed inference that she was more concerned for her own security from possible mishap at the romp than for that of Leslie herself. She hated the sarcastic reminder flung at her by Leslie that she had promised a favor on demand and was now not willing to keep her word. As Leslie had presented the situation to her there could be no risk to her. Leslie was more than able to look out for her own interests. To help Leslie now meant not only the keeping of her promise. It was a singularly easy way of keeping it.

“I’d rather you’d turn me down now than next year,” Leslie sneered as Doris continued silent.

“I’ll help you, Leslie.” Doris spoke stiffly, ignoring her disgruntled companion’s sneer.

“Come again.” Leslie cupped an ear with her hand, mockery in the gesture, but triumph in her small dark eyes.

“I said I would help you.” Doris repeated her first statement in an even stiffer tone. She would not permit Leslie to break down her poise.

“Good for you. You won’t be sorry. Help me to put over this stunt on Prigville and I’ll give you the Dazzler for your own.” Leslie was buoyantly generous in her delight at having gained her own way.

“I don’t want any such reward. That’s just the trouble with you, Leslie. You are always offering me so much more than I can ever return. I wish you were going to the dance, to stay all evening and have a good time with the others.” Doris sincerely meant the wish.

“You know whose fault it is that I can’t.” Leslie shrugged significantly. “Now I must plan my costume.” She straightened in her chair with a faint sigh. “I’ll sport blue overalls, a brown and red gingham shirt, large plaid, with no collar; a turkey-red cotton hankie, a big floppy hayseed hat and a striped umbrella.” She chuckled as she enumerated these items of costume.

“I had thought seriously of going as a swain, but decided against it. I’d rather look pretty. I have a certain reputation to keep up on the campus. I’d prefer not to caricature myself.”

“You make me smile, Goldie. How you worship that precious beauty reputation of yours! You may be right about it. I presume you are.”

Leslie’s rugged face grew momentarily downcast. She was thinking morosely that if, like Doris, she had been half as careful in whom she trusted and to what risks she lent herself when at Hamilton she might have escaped disgrace.

“I know I am.” Doris was emphatical. She noted the gloomy change in Leslie’s features and understood partly what had occasioned it. Those four words, “I presume you are,” made more impression on Doris than any other reference to her college trouble or against Marjorie Dean, which she had ever before heard Leslie make. It held a compelling, resigned inference of unfair treatment at the hands of others. Those others were of course Miss Dean and her friends. Doris allowed herself to jump to that conclusion. She had fostered jealous disdain of Marjorie until it had become antipathy. She knew Leslie’s faults, but she chose to overlook them. She had sometimes regarded Leslie’s accusations against “Bean” as overdrawn. Now she felt more in sympathy with Leslie’s standing grudge against Marjorie Dean than at any time since she had known Leslie.