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CHAPTER XVIII – WHEN FRIENDS BECOME FOES

Lucy’s secretaryship for Doctor Matthews lasted only three days. During that short space of time she found out nothing special, bearing on the wrong to Miss Remson which she longed to right. She learned to like the president of Hamilton College better than ever, and wished she might work for him longer. The only item of interest she came across was at his residence. In the secretary’s desk there she discovered the New York address of Leslie Cairns in a small red leather address book. To her analytical mind this was proof enough of an acquaintance between the two.

She had not expected to do anything of moment toward helping Miss Remson during those three days. Still she could not help confessing to Marjorie that she was a wee bit disappointed at not having learned a single thing.

“Never mind, Luciferous,” Marjorie had consoled. “You had the will to help Miss Remson if you did not have the opportunity. It may all come to light when you least expect it. That’s the way such things often happen.”

While Lucy had deplored her inability to obtain the desired information she legitimately sought, the Sans loudly deplored among themselves her temporary appointment as secretary. Coupled with it a story had reached the ears of Natalie Weyman and Joan Myers which caused them to flee to Leslie Cairns in a hurry. It had to do with the hazing party the previous February. Joan had been slyly taxed with it first. Pretending innocence, she had made an excuse to leave the senior who had intimated it to her without having betrayed herself in any particular.

Several days afterward she and Natalie Weyman had gone through almost the same experience with two juniors who had appeared to treat the affair as a huge joke. The girl who had first hinted it to Joan had been rather horrified over what she had evidently heard.

“I think it is high time we called Dulcie Vale to account!” Natalie exclaimed stormily, as she finished the recital of what she and Joan had just heard.

The two had burst in upon Leslie, regardless of the “Busy” sign which now ornamented her door a good deal of the time when she was in her room.

“Calm down, Nat. You are so mad you are fairly shouting. Take seats and have some candy, both of you.” Leslie lazily pushed a huge box of nut chocolates across the table within easy reach of her excited callers.

“Um-m! Glaucaire’s best!” Natalie forgot her wrath and helped herself to sweets.

“I had made up my mind before you two burst in with your tale of woe that Dulcie had escaped long enough. I have heard things, too, and just lately. Dulcie is not the only one. She talked to Bess. Bess Walbert is as busy a little news circulator as you’d care to find.”

“What did I tell you?” Natalie cried out in triumph.

“You were right, Nat. I give you credit for reading her correctly. I haven’t seen her since the first of the week. When I do – ” Leslie nodded her head, looking thoroughly disagreeable. Elizabeth Walbert was in for a very stormy interview with her.

“When will you call the meeting, Les?” anxiously inquired Joan. “Don’t put it off. No telling how much more mischief Dulcie may do if she isn’t curbed promptly.”

“Tomorrow night,” Leslie named. “See as many of the Sans as you can between now and the ten-thirty bell. Don’t go near Loretta Kelly’s and Della Byron’s room. Dulcie goes there a good deal lately. Della is coming to see me this evening after dinner. I’ll tell her then. Let me know before the last bell tonight how many of the girls are on, Nat. Will you?”

“Surely, Leslie dear.” Natalie had simmered down to affability. She was very proud of Leslie’s confidence in her.

Left alone, Leslie settled back in her chair very much as her father might have done on the eve of a pitched battle on the stock exchange. Her eyes roved about her room as she planned where the culprit should stand, where she wished the Sans to group themselves, and where her place as conductor of the arraignment should be.

A half smile flitted across her face as she remembered the last high tribunal she had conducted. This time the culprit was a real one. It had been hard to trump up charges against “Bean.” There would be no masks worn save the mask of deceit which she would ruthlessly strip from Dulcie, showing her in her true colors. After she was “all through” with Dulcie she would read the riot act to Bess Walbert. She wished to wait, however, until the sophomore unsuspectingly came to her for a favor. Then she would be shown a side of Leslie she had not dreamed existed.

At twenty minutes after ten Natalie came to Leslie’s room with the welcome news that “every last Sans” except Loretta and Della had been told and would be on hand promptly at eight o’clock the next evening.

“I saw Loretta and Della,” Leslie informed her chum. “They are wild. They heard that Dulc told two juniors about my renting that house for six months so we could use it when we hazed Bean. That’s a nice report to have in circulation on the campus, now isn’t it? Does that sound like Dulc, or doesn’t it?”

“Dulcie told that, undoubtedly. There were not more than six or seven of us who knew the terms on which you rented that house. Dulc knew. You always let her into extra private matters because she was one of the old guard. You and she were not so edgeways toward each other until after the night of the masquerade.”

“We never agreed on a single thing. Away back at prep school Dulc and I were always squabbling. In her heart she has never really liked me. Since the masquerade she has cordially hated me. That’s about my feeling toward her. I want her out of the Sans. She is a disgrace to them. I expected Nell Ray would fight for her, but she gave in as nicely as you please.”

“The girls are all down on her for telling tales,” returned Natalie. “I wonder if she thinks they don’t know the way she has gossiped about them?”

“She will know it tomorrow night,” asserted Leslie shortly.

“There goes the bell. I had better beat it. I have an hour’s studying to do tonight yet, and I am so sleepy,” Natalie yawned. “One thing more.” Half way across the threshold she turned and reentered the room. “How are you going to get Dulc on the scene?”

“Harriet is to tell her, late tomorrow afternoon, that the Sans are to meet in my room tomorrow night at eight to discuss something very important. She will come. She will be eaten up with curiosity to know what is going on. She’ll be just a little bit surprised when she learns how much she has to do with that important discussion.” Leslie threw back her head and laughed in her silent fashion.

“She deserves it.” Natalie’s whole face hardened perceptibly. “Look out for her, Les. She is capable of making a lot of fuss. We don’t care to have Remson coming up here to see what the trouble is.”

“If she is noisy, half a dozen of us will simply take her by the arms and bundle her off to her own room. It is only three doors from here,” Leslie answered with cool decision. “I can manage her, I think.”

The next day Dulcie received word of the meeting through the medium of Harriet. The latter delivered the notice in a careless tone which completely misled Dulcie.

“Why can’t it be some place besides Leslie Cairns’ room?” Dulcie pettishly demanded. “I hate to go near her!”

“Suit yourself,” shrugged Harriet. “You can’t say I didn’t tell you about it. It won’t be any place other than Leslie’s room.”

Her simulated indifference merely aroused in Dulcie a contrary resolve to attend that meeting at all costs. She had not been in Leslie’s room since the opening of college. She had a curiosity to see what changes Leslie had made in it from the previous year. Strangely enough, her own misdeeds never crossed her mind. She had no thought, when regaling others with her chums’ private affairs, that such treachery might possibly bring her a day of reckoning. The recent quarrels she had had with her former intimate, Eleanor Ray, and also Joan Myers, left no impression on her save a sullen dislike for the two girls because they had taken her to task for betraying their confidence.

As it was, she accepted an invitation to dinner at the Colonial extended her by Alida Burton. She lingered so long at the tea room that she walked into Leslie’s room at ten minutes past eight.

Slow of comprehension, even she felt dimly the tension of the moment. The Sans sat or stood in little groups about the room. With her entrance, conversation suddenly languished and died out. Every pair of eyes was leveled at her in a cool fashion which bordered on hostility.

“It seems to me you are all very quiet tonight. What’s the matter? Peevish because I’m late? Yes? What? Don’t cry. Ten minutes won’t kill any of you,” she greeted flippantly. “Hope I haven’t missed anything by being a tiny bit behind time.” She had adopted Leslie’s insolent swagger.

“No; you haven’t missed anything,” Leslie said dryly. “We were waiting for you.” She turned abruptly from Dulcie, addressing the others.

“Girls,” she raised her voice a trifle, “bring your chairs and arrange them on each side of the davenport in a half circle. Six girls can sit on the davenport. We are all here now, so we can proceed with the business of the evening.”

Her order promptly obeyed, the Sans settled themselves in their chairs with mingled emotions. None of them had a definite idea of how Leslie intended to conduct the embarrassing session against Dulcie. Face to face with the momentous occasion, a few of them felt slightly inclined toward clemency. The older members of the Sans were too greatly incensed by her treachery to do other than approve of the humiliation about to descend on the traitor.

It had been Leslie’s first idea to seat Dulcie in a particular chair. Second thought assured her that Dulcie would refuse the chair, merely to be contrary. She would undoubtedly sit where she would be most conspicuous if left to her own devices. Leslie decided the rest of the Sans must sit in a compact group. Wherever Dulcie might choose to post herself in the room she could not escape arraignment.

While the girls were arranging their chairs, Leslie occupied herself with hanging a heavy velvet curtain in front of the door leading to the hall. That task completed, she turned to find Dulcie had seated herself on the left hand side of the semi-circle, the last girl in the row. She had pulled her chair forward a trifle so as to command a good view of the company.

Dulcie was well-pleased with herself. She was still admiring her brazen entrance into the room. She felt that she had quite outdone Leslie in matter of cool insolence. In fact she was much better able to direct the club than Leslie. She wondered the girls had never realized it. She eyed Leslie with ill-concealed contempt as the latter seated herself in the chair of office which Natalie had placed in the fairly wide space between the ends of the half circle. Les grew homelier every day, was her uncharitable opinion.

“We are here tonight to perform a duty, which, though not pleasant, must be done.” Leslie made this beginning with only a slight drawl to her tones. “When we organized the Sans Soucians we all promised to be loyal to one another. I regret to say that one of our number has so completely violated this promise it becomes necessary to take drastic measures. We cannot allow a Sans to betray deliberately either club or personal secrets.”

Leslie placed great stress on “deliberately.” She was careful not to look toward Dulcie. “Do you agree with me in this?” She put the question generally.

“Yes,” was the concerted, emphatic answer. Dulcie’s voice helped to swell the chorus.

“The Sans have done certain things as a matter of reprisal and self-defense, which, if generally known, would entail very serious consequences. It is vital to our welfare at Hamilton that these matters should be kept secret, yet a member of the Sans has gossiped them to outsiders. For example, it is known to a number of seniors and juniors outside the Sans that a hazing affair took place last St. Valentine’s night, conducted by the Sans. Seven of us have been approached on this subject. We know, to a certainty, that a faction, antagonistic to us, did not start this story.

“Still more serious is a report brought to me concerning the methods employed by Joan and I to keep a residence for the Sans at the Hall when we were threatened with expulsion from here as sophomores. A person who will betray such intimate matters, knowing that her treachery may ruin the prospects of her chums for graduation from college, is not only a fool for risking her own safety, but a menace to the club as well.”

For ten minutes Leslie talked on in this strain, her hearers observing a strained silence. She was purposely piling up the enormity of Dulcie’s misdeed so as to impress the others. As for Dulcie, she had begun to show signs of nervousness. Once or twice her eyes measured the distance from her chair to the door as if she were meditating sudden flight. What remnants of conscience she still had, stirred to the point of informing her that the coat Leslie was airing fitted her too snugly for comfort. She had not yet arrived at the moment of awakening, however. She believed Leslie’s remarks to be directed toward someone else. Margaret Wayne, perhaps; or, Loretta Kelly. Leslie had once said to her that Loretta was a gossip. Dulcie now tried to recall an instance of Loretta’s perfidy. It would be to her interest to cite an instance of it should Leslie call for special evidence. It would pay Loretta back for once having called her a stupid little owl.

In the midst of racking her vindictive brain for evidence against a fellow member, Dulcie lost briefly the thread of Leslie’s discourse. Mention of her own name re-furnished her with it.

“Dulciana Vale,” she heard Leslie saying in a tense note quite different from her indolent drawl, “do you know of any reason why you should be allowed a further membership in the Sans Soucians after having become an utter traitor to their interests?”

Dulcie struggled to her feet, her sulky features a study in slow-growing rage. “What – what – do you – mean?” Her voice was rising to a gasping scream. “How dare you call me a traitor. You are telling lies; just nothing but lies.”

CHAPTER XIX – IN THE INTEREST OF PRIVATE SAFETY

“Sit down,” ordered Leslie sharply, “and keep your voice down! You have made us all enough trouble. We don’t propose that you shall add to it.”

“I have not,” shrieked Dulcie. “I don’t know what you are talking about. You’re crazy if you say I told all that stuff you mentioned. Why don’t you put the blame where it belongs? You told me yourself that Loretta and Margaret were both gossips. You told Bess Walbert a lot of things yourself. She told me so. You used to tell Lola Elster a lot, too. Nat Weyman isn’t above gossiping, either. She has said some hateful things about you, if you care to know it.”

Fully launched, Dulcie bade fair to stir up dissension in a breath. Worse, her lung power seemed to increase with every word.

“Pay no attention to her,” Leslie advised her chums in a cold, level voice. “She can tell more yarns to the second than anyone else I know.”

“You said you could manage her, Les. For goodness’ sake do so. I am afraid she’ll be heard down stairs.” Joan Myers sprang to her feet in exasperation.

“Leave that to me.” Leslie’s eyes snapped. She was fast losing the admirable poise she had held so well. The real Leslie Cairns was coming to the surface.

Three or four lithe steps and she was facing Dulcie. The latter still stood by her chair shrieking forth invective.

“Listen to me, you idiot,” she said with an intensity of wrath that approached a snarl. “Cut out that screaming —now. We are done with you. We know you for what you are. Not one of us will ever speak to you again after you leave this room. Get that straight. If you ever repeat another word on the campus of the Sans’ business you will be a sorry girl. Don’t you forget that. You carried the idea that, if trouble came from your talk, you could slide out of it and leave us to face it. You couldn’t have cleared yourself. What you are to do from now on is – ”

A sharp rapping at the door interrupted Leslie. Raising a warning finger to her lips, she crossed the room to answer the knock.

“Good evening, Miss Remson,” she coldly greeted. “Will you come in? Our club is holding a meeting in my room.” She made an indifferent gesture toward the assembled girls.

“Good evening, Miss Cairns. No; I do not wish to enter your room. I must insist, however, that you conduct your meeting quietly. The commotion going on in here can be heard downstairs.”

The very impersonality of the manager’s reproof brought a quick rush of blood to Leslie’s cheeks. It was as though Miss Remson considered Leslie and her companions so far beneath her it took conscientious effort on her part even to reprove them. It stung Leslie to a desire to clear herself of the opprobrium.

“I am sorry about the noise,” she apologized in annoyed embarrassment. “Miss Vale is responsible for it. I have been trying to quiet her. She is very angry with us for calling her to account for disloyalty. She has done so many despicable things we felt it necessary to call a meeting of the club to – ”

“Pardon me. I am not interested in anything save the fact that there must be no more screaming or loud altercation from this room tonight or at any other time. As it is your room, Miss Cairns, I shall hold you responsible for the good behavior of your guests.”

Again the aloofness of the rebuke cut Leslie through and through. She had never believed that she could be so utterly snubbed by “Trotty” Remson.

“Very well.” It was the only thing she could think of to say.

Miss Remson turned from the door and went on down the long hall. Leslie was seized with a savage inclination to bang the door. She refrained from indulging it. There had been enough noise already.

She returned to her companions to find Dulcie furious because she had been reported to Miss Remson as the author of the commotion.

“Talk about anyone being treacherous,” she stormed, but in a more subdued key. “You’re treacherous as a snake. You’d tell tales on – on your own father, if it would save you from disgrace.”

“That’s enough.” Leslie’s last atom of self-control vanished. “I am tired of your foolishness. Get out of my room, instantly. Don’t you ever dare even speak to me again. Let me hear one word you have said against any of us and I will have you expelled within twenty-four hours afterward. I can do it, too. If you go to headquarters with any tales against us, remember you are one and we are seventeen who will act as one in denying your fairy stories. You – ”

“Not fairy stories,” sneered Dulcie. “I’d be satisfied to tell the truth about you deceitful things. It would more than run you out of Hamilton.”

“You couldn’t tell the truth to save your life,” retorted Leslie with a caustic contempt which hit Dulcie harder than anything else Leslie had said to her.

“I – I – think – ” Dulcie struggled with her emotions, then suddenly burst into hysterical sobs. Her arm against her face to shut her distorted features from sight of her accusers, she stumbled to the door, groping for the knob with her free hand. An instant and she had gone, too thoroughly humiliated to slam the door after her. The sounds of her weeping could be faintly heard by the others until her own door closed behind her.

“Gone!” Joan Myers sighed exaggerated relief.

“Yes; and broken,” announced Leslie Cairns with cruel satisfaction.

“Oh, I don’t know,” differed Margaret Wayne. She had not forgotten Dulcie’s assertion as to what Leslie had said of her and Loretta. “Dulc had spunk enough to answer you back to the very last. I don’t see that – ”

“No, you don’t see. Well, I do. I say that Dulcie Vale left here just now utterly crushed,” argued Leslie with stress. “You are peeved, Margaret, because of what she claimed I said of you and Retta. She lied.”

“Certainly, Dulcie lied,” supported Natalie. “Do you believe that I, Leslie’s best friend, would say hateful things about her? Yet Dulc said I had. Didn’t Les warn you not to pay any attention to what she said? We knew she would try to make trouble among the Sans the minute we called her down.”

“We did, indeed.” Leslie made a movement of her head that betokened Dulcie’s utter hopelessness.

“I didn’t say I believed what Dulcie said,” half-apologized Margaret. In her heart she did not trust Leslie, however. It was like her to make just such remarks about any of the Sans if in bad humor.

“Never mind. It isn’t worrying me,” was the purposely careless response. “To go back to what you said about Dulc not being broken. I have known her longer than you, Margaret. She can keep up a row about so long, then she crumples. After that there isn’t a spark of fight left in her. She always ends by a fit of crying, next door to hysterics. Isn’t that true of her, Nat?”

Natalie nodded. “Yes; Dulcie will mind her own affairs now and keep her mouth closed for a long time to come.”

“She’s afraid of me,” Leslie continued, her intonation harsh. “She doesn’t know just the extent of my influence here.”

“Could you truly have her expelled within twenty-four hours?” queried Harriet Stephens somewhat incredulously.

“You heard me say so. It would take a very slight effort to do that. I could wire my father, then – ” Leslie paused, looking mysterious. “Sorry, girls, but I can’t tell you any more than that. I’ll simply say that my wonderful father’s influence can remove mountains, if necessary. That’s why I was so furious with that little sneak for daring even to mention his name.”

“Could your father’s influence save you from being expelled if different things you have done here were brought up against you?” demanded Adelaide Forman.

Leslie’s eyes narrowed at the question. It was a little too searching for comfort. In reality her father’s influence at Hamilton was a minus quantity. She had been boasting with a view toward increasing her own importance.

“It would depend entirely on what I had done,” she answered after a moment’s thought. “You must understand that my father would be wild if he knew I had gone out hazing when it is strictly against rules. He wouldn’t do a thing to help me if I had trouble with Matthews over that. If I wrote him that Dulcie, for instance, was trying, by lies, to have me or my friends expelled from Hamilton, he would fight for me in a minute.”

The Sans stayed for some time in Leslie’s room planning how they would meet further remarks leveled at them on the campus as a result of Dulcie’s defection. Leslie brought forth a fresh five-pound box of chocolates and another of imported sweet crackers. The party feasted and enjoyed themselves regardless of the fact that three doors from them a former comrade writhed and wept in an agony of angry shame. While in a measure their course might be justified, there was not one among them who had not, to a certain extent, and at some time or other, betrayed friendship.

This was also Dulcie’s most bitter grievance against those who had been her chums. She knew now that she had talked too much. So had the others. Still, she was sorry for herself. She had been deceived in Bess Walbert. Bess was the one who had circulated most of the Sans’ private affairs. She could not recall just how much she had told Bess; very likely no more than had Leslie. If they had given her time she would have been able to defend herself. With such reflections she strove to palliate her own offenses.

“Do you imagine Dulc will try to get back at us?” was Natalie’s first remark to Leslie as the door closed on the departing Sans. “She carried on about as I thought she might. We came off easily with Remson, didn’t we?”

“Dulcie is done, I tell you,” reasserted Leslie with an impatient scowl. “Remson! Humph! My worst enemy couldn’t have delivered a more telling snub. She may suspect us of making trouble between her and Matthews. I’ll say, I wish this year was done and Commencement here. If we slide through and capture those precious diplomas without the sword falling it will be a miracle.”