Muriel Harding had gone home on the Christmas vacation more puzzled than hurt over Doris Monroe’s sudden swerve from affability to hostility. It was not in Muriel’s easy-going nature to trouble long over anything, no matter how serious.

Since Marjorie had wished her to invite Doris to go with them to Sanford she had promptly acquainted her chum with “the Ice Queen’s return to the glacial period.” When Marjorie had perplexedly questioned “Why?” Muriel had replied with good-natured impatience: “Why does it rain? Because it does? Why is the Ice Queen? Because she is.”

During the last two or three busy days before vacation claimed them Doris and Muriel had employed monosyllables in addressing each other. Of the two Doris was the more greatly disturbed over the strained relations she had brought about. She had more real liking for Muriel than for any other student on the campus. Underneath her cold, indifferent exterior she had a critical appreciation of Muriel’s quick wit and extreme cleverness. The majority of the students whom she graciously allowed to admire her she took small interest in. Her approach and Muriel’s toward mutual friendliness had been very slow. It had progressed, however, in spite of the groundless dislike she persisted in holding against Muriel’s intimates.

She had gone furiously out of the Hall to mail the letter to Leslie Cairns vowing that she would never speak to Muriel again. Her tempestuous resolve was not so much the result of anger as of wounded pride. What a poor opinion Muriel Harding must have of her had been her chagrined thought as she crossed the campus to the mail box. Muriel had invited those wretched, beggarly off-campus students to her home first. She had only served Muriel as a last resort. Besides Muriel had discussed her with Marjorie Dean; no doubt had belittled her. Miss Dean had chosen to regard her as a welfare problem. Very likely Miss Dean was jealous of her because she had won the Beauty contest.

Though Doris did not suspect it the full-grown soul she possessed was awakening and beginning to clamor for attention. The true depths of her nature were trying to rise and overflow her more superficial side. Selfish indifference alone was the barrier that stood between her and a fuller, freer, happier college life.

She had found the admiration she had been accorded, first at the old-time hop, later at the Beauty contest, far more satisfying than merely being trotted about the campus by over-fond freshies as a “crush.” There had been a spirit of fun and frolic about both social affairs which had appealed to her girlish imagination. She was only eighteen and in spite of her bored, sophisticated air rather childish at heart.

For this very reason she had never really approved of Leslie Cairns or her unscrupulous, high-handed methods. She had been a little dazzled at first by Leslie’s expensive clothes, lavish expenditures of money and apparently boundless liberty. At the time when Leslie had offered her the use of the white car she had named the Dazzler, Doris had felt some degree of liking for the ex-student of Hamilton. She had more reluctantly accepted the gift of the smart white costume and furs which Leslie had insisted upon giving her. She had demurred even more strongly against allowing Leslie to open an account for her at the Hamilton Reserve Bank. Leslie had over-ruled her in the matter and had deposited in the bank five hundred dollars to the account of Doris Monroe. She had assured Doris that she regarded the transaction as “a business proposition.”

Her chief argument had invariably been: “Make yourself popular on the campus and it will be worth a lot more to me than a few dollars, togs or buzz-wagons. I need you to keep me posted as to what goes on at the knowledge shop. Leave Bean and her Beanstalks alone, though. When I need news of them you can get it in a roundabout way. I’ll help you, and I’ll expect you to help me—when I need you.”

Just what Leslie meant by frequent covert allusions to a future day when she would need Doris’s help was something Doris occasionally pondered. She had firmly refused to interest herself in the tentative proposal Leslie had once made that certain anonymous letters should be written and sent to Marjorie Dean. Since that occasion Leslie had never suggested any other unscrupulous work for Doris to do.

While Doris accepted dinner and luncheons from Leslie and allowed Leslie to pay for the upkeep of the Dazzler, she was wary about spending Leslie’s money. She knew her father would be righteously enraged with her for accepting a penny from either stranger or friend. Her own allowance was a comfortable one for a girl of her age. The money she saved by sharing her room with Muriel also augmented it. She had a very fair wardrobe and had therefore done no shopping in particular since entering Hamilton. She developed no crushes. Consequently she did not spend much money. She was not mean or stingy in this respect. She was too selfishly indifferent and too indifferently selfish to care to give pleasure to others. Her beauty had always demanded for her, and met no denial.

Since she had come to Hamilton College she had cherished two ambitions. The first had been toward popularity. The second was to achieve a trip to New York City. Popularity, because of her beauty, had quickly found her. The trip to New York had not been so easy of fulfillment. She had hoped to go to New York with Leslie at Thanksgiving. Leslie had disappointed her. More, she had utterly discouraged the idea when Doris had defiantly asserted that she would visit the metropolis alone. Leslie’s half sincere promise to show Doris about New York during the Christmas vacation was one on which Doris had fondly built. Her anger, on hearing from Leslie that she did not intend to fulfill the promise, had been so scathing as to cause Leslie to reconsider and try to make peace with wrathful “Goldie.”

Muriel’s invitation had been offered at the psychological moment in Doris’s affairs. The step in the right direction which she had planned to take would have wrought an admirable change in her before the dawn of New Years. Instead Doris had received a call from Julia Peyton which had completely uprooted her healthily growing good will toward Muriel and again thrown her upon the society of Leslie Cairns for amusement.

Leslie had received Doris’s note with a silent hobgoblin laugh and a contemptuous: “Pouf; I thought she wouldn’t stay peeved.” Deciding to keep the sophomore in suspense she had not answered the note until the very last moment. It had reached Doris on the morning of the day when college closed for the holidays, leaving her barely time to pack a trunk and arrange her affairs. Long since determined on the New York trip at some time or other, Leslie or no Leslie, Doris had saved a certain sum each month from her allowance. She had not therefore drawn on the account in Hamilton bank for the trip, nor did she intend to do so. The very sight of the bank book in the top drawer of her chiffonier gave her a feeling of uneasiness. At the time when she had burst upon the campus in her white suit, furs and shining white car she had used in the neighborhood of seventy-five dollars of the sum in bank to her credit. Since then she and Leslie had quarreled and bickered so much she wished she had never used a cent of the five hundred. She planned to return it from her own income after the trip to New York was over.

“I wish you had let me know sooner what you intended to do,” had been Leslie’s grumbling words to Doris as the two met at the Hamilton station. On receipt of Leslie’s belated note Doris had obeyed its instructions to call Leslie on the telephone at the Hamilton House. Over the telephone the trip had been hurriedly arranged.

“Why didn’t you let me know?” had been the ruffled sophomore’s strongly emphasized question. “You could have answered my note sooner than you did.”

“You should have written me long before you did.” Leslie’s emphasis had been stronger and more displeased than had Doris’s. “I told you before you left me at the Colonial that I would go to New York. You never said a word. It’s your own fault, Goldie, that you had to rush around like mad at the last minute.”

Such had been the discordant basis upon which the two girls had met at a time when all the world of light and love was pleading for “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” Once they had settled down in the train for the journey they had grown a trifle more amiable. They were both too fond of pleasure not to look forward to a two weeks’ stay in New York. Leslie had soon miraculously recovered her good humor and had proceeded to lay out a program of amusements for the first week of their stay in the metropolis. She had decided privately to “ship Goldie back to the campus the day after New Years.” That would leave her a few brief days in New York alone to go about her own affairs. Time was flying. She had difficult and important work to do which must be done soon.

She planned to humor Doris to a round of holiday gaieties. They would dine and lunch at the smartest restaurants and tea rooms. They would occupy box seats at the theatres, and at the opera. Leslie even considered introducing Doris to Natalie Weyman. That would mean an entree for Doris into New York’s most exclusive younger set. Her objection to this proposal was that Nat was “such a snip when she was jealous.” Of course she would be jealous of Doris. She was capable of “snubbing Doris off the face of the earth.” That would mean Doris in a towering rage again.

Leslie was not anxious to arouse a fresh spirit of antagonism in Doris. The self-willed sophomore was her only reliable source of campus information. Besides, Doris was more truthful than the majority of girls with whom she had chummed. She had also the virtue of silence. Goldie could be trusted not to “tell everything she knew, and a lot she didn’t know, to the mob.” Like the majority of untruthful persons, Leslie was quick to note and appreciate truth in someone else. Again, she did not fancy losing the companionship of the one girl intimate she had at Hamilton. She had spent time, patience, effort and money in cultivating Doris’s friendship. She did not propose to be a loser.

Beyond the usual brief letter which Leslie had received every Monday morning from Mrs. Gaylord, her obligingly absent chaperon might as well have been a myth. Since Leslie had settled down for a protracted stay in Hamilton, and at the Hamilton House, Mrs. Gaylord had spent an enjoyable period of visiting her relatives and friends. Leslie demanded a weekly letter from the chaperon. She answered it only as she felt inclined. It had been earlier arranged between them that, should anything of moment occur suddenly of an adverse nature to either, the other was to be immediately notified by telegram.

The one contingency which both feared was the sudden wrathful interference of Peter Cairns. Such a calamity must be shrewdly guarded against. Neither was desirous of giving up an arrangement which suited both so admirably. They had prepared a telegram against the emergency. It was: “Hamilton House Central.” It signified that they were to meet in Hamilton at the Hamilton House as soon as possible.

On the Sunday before Christmas Leslie had seen fit to write Mrs. Gaylord at Greenwold, where she was visiting a friend, informing her of the proposed trip to New York.

“Now don’t think you have to drop everything and hit up a pace for New York,” she had written with slang insolence. She had stopped to snicker after setting down thus much as she pictured plump, dignified Mrs. Gaylord proceeding on foot toward the metropolis at racing speed. “My sophy pal, Miss Monroe, and I, will stay at the Essenden. It’s exclusive enough to suit even P. G. He’ll never know we’re there, so you should fidget. I shan’t look up Nat. Deliver me from soreheads like her. At least she would be one, if she saw me with a new chum. That will cut out the society part, so don’t throw a scare over that. I think the grand old grump is out of town. Since he can’t see me in the family circle I’d rather he’d sail across the pond and disappear for a while. I heard he was going to London soon. Don’t know. I’ll write you from New York. Do as I say, and stay where you are, unless we have to telegraph. Get me? L.”

Although Leslie had put the pertinent proviso, “unless we have to telegraph,” in her letter to Mrs. Gaylord she did not anticipate any such contingency. She had a comfortable conviction that her father was probably too deep in his own affairs to think of her. Mrs. Gaylord had not heard from him. She was sure of that. Her chaperon had had instructions, in case Mr. Cairns were to write her, to inform Leslie of this by the statement: “X equals the unknown quantity.” Safeguarded by what Leslie chose to consider her own great cleverness, she felt herself a match for even her financier father.