When the door had closed on her gossiping caller Doris sat down again at the table. She leaned her beautiful head on her white, dimpled arms and gave herself up to brief disconsolate reverie. Now that she was alone she wondered whether what Julia Peyton had said about Muriel Harding was strictly true. There was one way in which she could find out with certainty. She would ask Muriel point-blank if it were true that four off-campus girls had refused her invitation. She would ask Muriel, also, where she had gained so much information regarding herself. When she endeavored to recall Julia’s exact words she found they did not mean much. Julia’s reluctant inflections, her stammering pauses, had implied so much more than words.

Julia’s object in warning Doris against Muriel had been double. Since the evening when she had made complaint against the noise in Room 15 she had shown marked hostility to the knot of post graduates at Wayland Hall. She and Clara Carter had encouraged Doris in her half fancied dislike for them. She had noted the new spirit of friendliness growing between Doris and Muriel with every intention of crushing it if she could. She kept up a zealous watching and longing for an opportunity to create dissention between them. She had a habit of dropping in on Doris in her room when Muriel was there purposely to see how things were between the two. She never spoke to Muriel, however.

About the time she had begun to despair of making mischief between them she was delighted to overhear a group of chattering freshmen in the gymnasium one afternoon gaily discussing their Christmas plans. What most pleased her were the remarks of one of them: “Isn’t it too bad? Miss Harding can’t find a single dorm to trot home with her. They are all attached. It’s too bad for her. I mean. Of course it’s lovely for the dorms.”

The jealous, prejudiced girl had chosen to place an entirely different construction upon the remarks from that intended by the merry little freshman. By the time she had repeated the remarks to Clara Carter, her roommate, with embellishments, they had assumed an ugly tone. Clara also contributed a few opinions which did not improve matters.

Added to this it needed but the rumor that Doris Monroe was going home with Miss Harding for the holidays to set the mischief-making pair of sophomores to work. Julia was of the opinion that since Doris had planned to go home with Muriel she and Miss Cairns must have quarreled. If she could only set Doris against her roommate then Doris would go home for the vacation with her. She would have the pleasure of boasting that she had entertained the college beauty. She was confident that she would gain socially by having entertained Doris as her guest. With so much to be gained to her interest Julia had picked her hour and boldly braved the “Busy” sign and Doris’s “royal” manner. At the last she had not dared propose to Doris that her wrathful classmate should spend the vacation with her. She returned to her room to inform Clara, who was watching for her, that she had just missed getting into an awful mess.

With a pettish little jerk of her head Doris straightened in her chair. She picked up the letter she had been writing from the table and began reading it over. Then she sat staring reflectively at it, as though deliberating some very special course. Next instant and she had torn the unfinished letter in pieces. With the peculiar cresting of her golden head, always a sign of defiance, she reached for her fountain pen where it had rolled to one end of the table.

“Dear Leslie:” she wrote, her green eyes darkening with her unquiet thoughts. “If you really meant what you said when I left you the other day at the Colonial, then I will take you at your word. Miss Harding, my roommate, has invited me to go home with her. I prefer to go to New York with you, provided you will not feel that I am an incumbrance to your plans. Let me know immediately what you wish to do.

She read the brief note, folded it and prepared it for mailing. Then she tucked the envelope in her portfolio, but without a stamp. She glanced up at the clock. It was nearing six. Muriel would soon arrive. Of late she and Muriel had exchanged the cheerful, careless greetings of girlhood when they met in their room or on the campus. She had lately begun to find a roommate might be a congenial comfort instead of a tiresome inconvenience. Now it was all spoiled. Muriel had pretended pity for her to other students. Of all things detested, Doris most disliked being pitied.

In spite of her anger against Muriel, Doris could do no less than admit to herself that Julia Peyton’s word was not to be taken above Muriel’s. Yet she was sullenly convinced that Muriel must have said something pitying about her to someone. How else could Julia have heard it? A bright flush dyed her face as she thought of herself as being a last-resort guest. Perhaps Muriel had been asked by Miss Dean to invite her, merely as a welfare experiment. She had heard that Miss Dean was fond of making such experiments. It was outrageous that she should have been selected as the victim of one. Other far-fetched, flashing conjectures visited her troubled brain as she waited for Muriel’s coming. She could not decide whether to treat Muriel with friendliness, asking her frankly for an explanation, or to resort once again to her old-time haughty indifference.

Muriel’s sudden breezy entrance and accompanying cry: “Where, oh, where, are the lickerish lights?” took Doris’s mind off herself for a moment. Muriel had already pressed the switch near the door. She made such an attractive study in her gray squirrel coat and cap, cheeks carnation pink, dark eyes snapping with sheer love of life Doris had no desire to be haughty.

“I forgot the lights,” she said with a little shrug. She continued to watch Muriel who was removing coat and cap. “I should like to ask you something,” she said as Muriel hung up her wraps and commenced smoothing her ruffled hair before a mirror.

“Ask ahead.” Muriel waved affable permission with her hair brush.

“Is there—are there—am I the only guest you have invited for Christmas?” Unconsciously Doris’s voice had taken on a shade of its former icy quality.

“You’re the only one who’s coming,” laughed Muriel. “You’re by no means the only one I invited.”

“Oh!” Doris gave a queer little gasp.

“Did you hear about my dormitory girls? I invited them, and they accepted. Then they had unexpected checks sent them from home and away they went. I wandered around looking for some checkless, invitationless dorms. There were no such stoojents.” Muriel declared good-humoredly. “I supposed of course you were dated ahead for the holidays. Then I asked you, and found you weren’t. I was so glad. I’d have felt sorry to think of you poking around the campus over Christmas alone. You’re so far from home, you see. Marjorie said the same and—”

“I don’t wish anyone to be sorry for me.” Doris’s almost fierce utterance checked Muriel’s flow of cheery volubility.

“All right. I’m not sorry a bit. You only dreamed I was,” she retorted in a tone of gay raillery.

“I’m not jesting. I am serious.” Doris drew herself up, a slim figure of affronted dignity. All that Julia had said of Muriel was true. Only one question, and Muriel had then practically admitted saying almost the exact words Julia had quoted as hers.

“Oh-h-h?” Muriel voiced the monosyllable questioningly. Her bright expression faded into concern. “Serious about what?” she asked.

“About not wishing you or Miss Dean or any of your friends to be sorry for me. I have plenty of friends—delightful friends. Why, I’ve refused half a dozen Christmas invitations! I have changed my mind about going home with you. I’m not going. I shall go to New York instead. I might have liked you, if you hadn’t tried to pity me behind my back. That was worse than to my face. Please tell Miss Dean to mind her own affairs. I am not a welfare experiment.”

Doris delivered the long answer to Muriel’s question in a voice that grew more scornful with each word. She busied herself as she sputtered forth her displeasure with the donning of hat and coat. With “experiment” she snatched the letter she had written to Leslie Cairns from the portfolio, hastily affixed a stamp to the envelope and rushed from the room. Muriel watched her go, divided between vexation and perplexity. What under the sun had happened to the Ice Queen?