While Marjorie Dean and Muriel Harding had been earnestly discussing a welfare invitation for difficult Doris Monroe, the latter had been spending a couple of very disagreeable hours with Leslie Cairns. Leslie had seen fit to assume the particularly dictatorial air which of all her category of unpleasant moods Doris most thoroughly detested.

To begin with Leslie had come to meet Doris at the Colonial fresh from a hot argument with the Italian, Sabatini, whom she had seen fit to call on at his garage and scathingly upbraid for being a “cheating dago quitter.” Leslie argued that, for the amount of money she had paid Sabatini he should have stood out against the threats of Signor Baretti and declined to put the busses back into service.

“You are no lady, but the creza girl; thick head you have,” Sabatini had finally shouted at Leslie when his temper broke all bounds. “You are the foolish. I don’ run the busses when Baretti say I must, I get my franchisa take from me. Then don’ run, anyhow. You get that through your head, you can.”

“Then give back part of that money, and cut out the pet names,” Leslie had blazed back at him. “You’ll find out who you’re talking to, you thieving dago, before you are many weeks older. I’ll break you. Put you out of business. Just like that!” Leslie had given her usual imitation of what she fondly believed would have been her father’s way of dealing with the situation.

As a matter of fact her father, Peter Cairns, would never have figured personally in any such affair. He would have placed it in the hands of a subordinate below his rank as financier, who would have in turn detailed his subordinate to act and so on down until one competent to deal with the Italian had been secured.

Leslie was not ignorant of her father’s methods of procedure but she was ambitious to prove her own power over people and circumstances. She was determined to prove to her father that she could bring about any consummation she desired either by her own clever maneuvering or by force of will. Her idea of will power was—“make other people do as you say.”

Sabatini’s parting, furious speech had been: “You try make troubla I make you the troubla, too. You see. I tell about you to the paper man. Everabuddy read ’bout you in the paper.” He had already refused to return a penny of the money she had given him. Leslie’s humor as she lounged out of the garage with an air of lofty indifference was ferocious.

This had been her third and most trying interview with the Italian, Sabatini, since the busses had again begun to run. She reflected morosely as she drove her car along Hamilton Pike to keep her engagement with Doris that not a single thing she had planned since first she had come to Hamilton College as a student had ever turned out advantageously to her. She did not in the least blame herself or her methods. She was conceitedly sure of herself. Someone or something had always “butted in” at the wrong time. Or else the persons on whom she depended to do their parts in her various schemes had failed her.

She wondered if her father had received the letter she had written him. She was confident that it would be forwarded to him if he were not in New York. She was particularly anxious to know where he was. She hoped he was not in New York. For weeks, a scheme, the most ambitious plan to make trouble which Leslie had yet concocted, had been foremost in her thoughts. It had kept her busy ever since Thanksgiving, daily visiting her garage property and prowling in the immediate neighborhood of the dormitory building. The gray stone walls of the dormitory were well started and steadily reaching upward, a fact which seemed to furnish Leslie with deep though frowning interest.

Coming within sight of the dormitory that afternoon she had glanced toward it and given a short angry laugh. She had then stopped her car for a moment to compare the activities on the dormitory lot with those going on at her garage site. The operation of tearing down the old houses in the block she had purchased, and afterward clearing the ground, had gone very slowly. The contractor who had charge of that part of the work had dragged it, so as to benefit himself. Under honest management the operation should have been far enough advanced at least to show the garage cellar dug. As it was the ground she owned was yet partially littered with the debris of demolishment.

When she had finally arrived at the Colonial there to find Doris waiting for her at one of the tables she had reached a point where nothing could please her. On the way from the dormitory site to the Colonial she had decided to go to New York alone over the holidays. She had important work to do. She did not propose to allow entertaining Doris to interfere with it.

Her first words to Doris on seating herself at the table had been: “The trip to New York is off, Goldie. I can’t take you with me, I mean. I have to go, but entirely on business, I must go alone.”

Her disappointment very keen on hearing such depressing news, Doris had received Leslie’s announcement with bad grace. More, she had accused Leslie of not being a person of her word. The two girls had argued and squabbled as was their wont. Doris was particularly incensed over the fact that she had refused two invitations from adoring freshmen to go home with them for the holidays. Three different sophs had also extended her invitations. She had refused them all because she most fancied the New York trip. Now Leslie had changed her mind and she, Doris Monroe, would be the only loser.

Leslie had relied on her most sarcastic, overbearing manner to cope with Doris’s indignant explosion. As before, when they had stood out against each other, Leslie found her match. Doris proved herself so utterly, scornfully thorny that Leslie finally backed water and volunteered the sulky promise that if she possibly could she would take Doris to New York as she had first agreed. Doris herself had not asked it. Neither had she appeared to take note of the promise. When she left Leslie at the door of the Colonial, refusing to enter her car, she had merely said “good-bye” in the iciest of tones. This did not worry Leslie. It was not the first time Doris had walked away miffed.

Doris, however, was not only angry at Leslie for her wilful unreliability, she was experiencing a healthy contempt for Leslie herself. She contrasted Leslie’s standards and ideals with those of the girls on the campus whom she was beginning to know, understand and like. She liked the jolly, worshipping freshmen who had made so much of her. They were an honorable set. She liked Louise Walker, Calista Wilmot and Charlotte Robbins particularly among the sophs. She admired Gussie Forbes, though she never went near her. She knew Gussie to be devoted to Marjorie Dean. She had quite a secret crush on Robin Page, though she would have died rather than admit it. She liked Phyllis Moore and Barbara Severn. She also liked Muriel and admired her for her sturdy principles. She kept these likes to herself, however, pretending to be more indifferent than she was.

She could not be among such girls long without discerning the difference between their ethical standards and those of Leslie Cairns. She detested Leslie’s unscrupulousness, yet there were times when she admired the ex-student’s sang froid. She saw the really humorous, clever side of Leslie and felt vaguely sorry for her because she was so unprepossessing. She realized Leslie’s power through money, but she had lost her respect for the lawless girl on that head.

She had hurried into the early winter twilight from the tea room feeling as though she never wished to see Leslie Cairns again. All the way from the campus gates to Wayland Hall she continued to think darkly of what she had lost by Leslie’s selfish tactics. She had announced so confidently, in refusing other Christmas invitations, that she expected to spend the holidays in New York. Now she would not humble her pride by letting it be known that she had been disappointed.

In consequence Muriel’s invitation, delivered immediately after she reached her room, came as a consoling surprise. Instantly followed remembrance that Muriel was one of the Sanford five whom Leslie detested. She recalled her own antagonism toward Marjorie Dean. To accept a Christmas invitation to Muriel’s home meant the acceptance of Muriel’s chums as friendly acquaintances. It flashed upon Doris in that moment of self-examination that there was no reason why she should not accept as her friends the four Sanford girls who were Muriel Harding’s intimates.

Following that illuminating flash came a thought far from noble. It took strong hold of Doris. How piqued Leslie Cairns would be were she to accept Muriel’s invitation. It would serve Leslie right. It would show her that she, Doris Monroe, had the courage of independence. She had no faith in Leslie’s final grudging assurance that the trip to New York should be made as they had planned it. Leslie had changed her mind once, she was likely to disappoint her again.

Thought of Leslie and a resentful desire to exasperate her completely outweighed consideration of the purely social side of Muriel’s invitation. Doris’s momentary hesitation after Muriel had invited her did not arise, as Muriel had surmised, from regretful embarrassment at her lack of cordiality toward Muriel’s chums. Doris’s mind was fully occupied with one idea—the beneficial effect her trip to Sanford would have upon Leslie. She would write Leslie a note informing her of the astonishing change in her Christmas plans. If Leslie chose to rage over the matter, she must rage it out alone. Doris resolved that she would not see Leslie again until after she had returned to the campus from the trip to Sanford.