Part 17 (2/2)

”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 fas.h.i.+on.

”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 fas.h.i.+on 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 embarra.s.sing 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 a.s.sured 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 s.p.a.ce 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 soph.o.m.ores. 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.”

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