قراءة كتاب Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore
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CHAPTER III.
GATHERING CLOUDS.
"Really!" came in surprised exclamation from Vera.
"Hmm! What a congenial pair!" was Helen Trent's placid reception of the information.
"Like walks with like." Leila's tones vibrated with satirical truth. "Knaves fall out, but to fall in again."
"I know it," agreed Jerry. "One would naturally suppose that Miss Cairns would have no use for Row-ena after the net she led her into. Not a bit of it."
"It must have been a shock, Jeremiah, to look up suddenly and find yourself in such company." Helen could not repress the ghost of a chuckle.
"It was. They were lined up for battle. I saw that at a glance. Row-ena was half laughing; a trick of hers when she is all ready to make a grand disturbance. Leslie Cairns looked like a Japanese thundercloud. I never said a word; just sat very straight in my chair. I went on eating my ice as if I didn't know they were there. Like this."
Jerry gave an imitation of her manner and facial expression on the occasion she was describing.
"I thought they might give it up as a bad job and go away, but they stayed. Then Row-ena started in with a regular tirade about Marjorie and all of us. I can't repeat what she said word for word. Anyway, she called us all liars. I don't remember what I said, but it must have been effective. I certainly handed Row-ena my candid opinion of herself. She saw she was getting the worst of the argument and declared she wouldn't stay and be so insulted. She started out of the pavilion, calling Miss Cairns to come along. The fair Leslie wouldn't budge. She told Row-ena to go on, that she had something to say to me. That was the first remark she had made. Then she asked me in her slow, drawling way if I would listen to something she had to say to me. I said I would not. I had heard too much as it was. I got up and beat it and left her standing there. I was so sore I forgot to pay for my ice. I had to send Hal back with the money. As I started away from the pavilion, I saw Row-ena getting into a dizzy-looking black and white roadster. I think the car belonged to Miss Cairns. It looked like her. I suppose she and dear Row-ena had been out for a ride and simply happened to run across me in the pavilion.
"Now comes the most interesting part of the story." Jerry glanced from one to another of her attentive little audience. "Three days afterward the postman left me a letter. The address was typed, so was the letter. When I opened it, I soon knew the writer. Here it is." Jerry produced a letter from a white kid bag she was carrying. "The distinguished writer of this letter is Leslie Cairns. I brought it along to read to you because what she has to say includes all of us. It's what I would call an open declaration of war. Listen to this:
"'Miss Macy:
"'Since you refused to listen to me the other day, I must resort to pen and ink to make you understand that when I have anything to say to a person I propose to say it. It isn't a case of what you want. It is a case of what I want. To begin with, I knew all about you and your pals before ever you came to Hamilton. My friend, Miss Farnham, heard that you were to enter Hamilton and warned me against all of you. I had you looked up, as I have powerful ways and means of doing this.
"'As your friend, Miss Dean, the lying little hypocrite, had made my friend, Miss Farnham, so much trouble at high school, I decided to even her score for her. At first I did not intend to allow you to enter Hamilton at all. When I say "you" I include those dear chums of yours. My father could easily have arranged to keep you out of Hamilton. Then I concluded it would be better to let you come here and make things lively for you.
"'I proposed that call on you ninnies on your first evening at college. We arranged matters so as to fuss you self-satisfied freshies a little and keep you from your dinner. We didn't care anything about meeting you, but we thought we might as well look you over. Miss Weyman gave it out that she would meet your party with her car on purpose to keep other students away. We wanted you to be a little bit lonesome. When you said in your room, that you saw Miss Weyman's car at the station, we thought perhaps you might have seen through the joke. But you were so thick. You didn't.
"'Miss Weyman had no intention of wasting good gasoline on you. She loaded her car with girls on purpose. There was no room to spare. She stopped it above the station yard and stayed there until after the train had come in. After a while she drove into the yard and out again. Not one of us set foot on the platform. It was a clever bluff and served you precisely right.
"'I haven't either the patience or the will to tell you all the clever stunts we put over on you simpletons last year. Believe me, when I say, it isn't a circumstance compared to what we intend to do this year. You came back at us in March in a way we will not forget or overlook. You think you are pretty strongly intrenched because you and your crowd are quite pally with certain upper class students who pose as wonders of smartness. Well, don't build too much on your popularity. Popularity sometimes has a habit of vanishing over night.
"'It seems too bad to be wasting time and paper on you, but I am square enough to let you have the truth straight from the shoulder. You girls have made us trouble from the start, and I predict that it will not be long before Hamilton will be too small to hold your crowd and mine. Your crowd will be the one to go; not the Sans. I am not afraid to tell you this, because there is nothing in this letter that you can get me on.
"'Leslie Cairns.'"
"That is so like Leslie Cairns." Leila's blue eyes flashed their profound contempt. "She loves to boast of her own ill-doing. She thinks it gives her a standing among her friends. She poses as being afraid of nothing and no one.
"That is truly an outrageous letter!" Vera's voice rang with shocked indignation. "I wonder at her boldness in writing it."
"Ah, but consider! It is a typed letter. Would you mind letting me look at the signature, Jerry?" Helen requested.
"With pleasure." Jerry willingly surrendered the typed letter to Helen.
The latter studied the signature shrewdly. "I don't think this is Leslie Cairns signature," she said, shaking her head. "That is about the way I thought it would be."
"Humph!" Leila had evidently caught Helen's meaning. The others looked a trifle mystified.
"But Leila just now said the letter sounded like Leslie Cairns!" Jerry exclaimed. "She wrote it. I am sure of that. Her name is signed to it. Why then——" Jerry stopped. "Oh, yes," she went on, in sudden enlightenment. "I begin to understand."
"Of course you do," returned Helen. "In the first place," she explained to her puzzled listeners, "this letter has neither date nor place of writing. It is typed and signed 'Leslie Cairns,' but I am almost positive she did not sign it. She has either disguised her hand or another person has signed her name to it at her request, you may be sure. Object—if Jerry decided to make her any trouble at Hamilton over the letter, she would say she had nothing whatever to do with the writing of it."
"It would take a whole lot of nerve to do that. After what happened last year, she could hardly hope to be believed." This was Muriel's view of the matter.
"Still, if the letter were typed and not signed by her, there would be no proof that she wrote it unless someone
