Leslie Cairns’ opinion of the matter coincided with Jerry’s, though the latter could not know it. To become involved in a roadside argument with an irate taxicab driver did not appeal to her in the least. She was not half so angry with him, however, as with Elizabeth Walbert. She blamed the latter for the whole thing. For several minutes after Helen and Jerry had driven by them, Elizabeth and the driver continued to quarrel.

“How much do you want for the damage you say we have done your cab?” Leslie had impatiently inquired of the man. “Cut it out, Bess, and get back to your car,” she had ordered in the next breath. “Let me settle this business.”

A momentary hesitation and Elizabeth had obeyed. She could not afford to antagonize Leslie, at present. She had an axe of her own yet to be ground.

“I oughtta have twenty-five dollars. It ain’t my car. Repairin’ comes high.”

“Very good. Here is your money. Wait a minute.” Leslie had extracted the sum from her handbag. With it came a small pad of blank paper and a fountain pen. Then and there she obtained not only a receipt for the money but a statement of release as well. She was well aware that it would not cost twenty-five dollars to repaint the side of the cab scraped by their car, but she preferred the matter summarily closed.

Returning to the car she had said shortly: “I’ll take the wheel.” Elizabeth had resumed the driver’s seat. Nor had she made any move toward relinquishing it.

“You heard what I said, Bess,” she had sharply rebuked. “Either that, or you and I are on the outs for good. You let me drive that car and show you a few things you need badly to know about driving.” Leslie’s lowering face and tense utterance had had its effect. Elizabeth had allowed her to drive back to Hamilton but had sulked all the way to the campus.

At the garage she had unbent a little and inquired how much Leslie had paid the driver. “I’ll return it to you next week,” she had promised.

“Suit yourself about that. I’m in no hurry. I took it upon myself to settle with the idiot. It wouldn’t worry me if you never paid it. I thought it best to pacify him. I don’t care to have him reporting us to Matthews as he threatened to do.” This had been Leslie’s mind on the subject.

“I don’t believe he would ever go near Doctor Matthews. Still you couldn’t afford to risk being reported,” Elizabeth had retorted with special emphasis on the “you.”

To this Leslie had vouchsafed no reply. She had merely stared at her companion in a most disconcerting fashion and walked off and left her. She was thoroughly nettled with Elizabeth for her lack of gratitude. Natalie was right about her it seemed. She was also wondering where the ungrateful sophomore had obtained certain information which she apparently possessed. No one beyond her seven intimates among the Sans knew that she had been reprimanded by President Matthews for the accident to Katherine Langly. To the other members of the club she had intimated that she had adjusted the matter quietly with Katherine.

That evening, while Jerry was recounting to her chums what she and Helen had heard of the altercation between the cab driver and the two girls, Leslie was having a confidential talk with Natalie Weyman. She had gone straight from the garage to her room, eaten dinner at the Hall and asked Natalie to come to her room after dinner.

“Nat, you are right about Bess. She is no good,” Leslie began, dropping into a chair opposite that of her friend. Briefly narrating the happening of the afternoon, she repeated the remark Elizabeth had made to her at the garage. “What would you draw from that?” she asked.

“Someone has been talking.” Natalie compressed her lips in a tight line. “You are sure you never told her yourself?”

“Positively, no. I have never babbled my private affairs to Bess, or Lola either. Only the old crowd were told the facts of that trouble. We have a traitor in the camp and I know who it is.” Leslie’s eyes narrowed with sinister significance. “It’s Dulcie. I am going to find out quietly what all she has been saying about me and to whom she has been saying it. I’m sure she told Bess about the summons. That isn’t so serious. I could overlook that, although I don’t like it. It is the other things she may have told. That’s what worries me. She and I have been on the outs since that Valentine masquerade last year. She hardly ever comes to my room. I am not sorry. I never got along well with Dulcie. I never trusted her.”

“Dulcie ought to know better than tell all she knows to that Walbert creature,” Natalie made indignant return. “Why, Les, suppose she were foolish enough to tell her about that high tribunal stunt?” Natalie drew a sharp breath of consternation. “Dulcie knows the rights of the Remson mix-up, too.”

“Dulcie knows too much. So do some of the other girls. If I had it to do over again, I would not tell anyone but you how I put over a stunt. Why did we haze Bean? Simply because she reported me to Matthews after Langly had agreed to drop it. The girls were all in on the hazing, so not one of them would be safe if they told it.”

“The Remson affair would do you the most harm if it got out,” Natalie said decidedly. “It is contemptible in Dulcie to gossip about you after all the favors you have done her. You’ve lent her money over and over again. You know she never pays it back if she can slide out of it.”

Leslie made an indifferent gesture of assent. “She owes me over two hundred dollars now. I lent it to her during her freshie year. She paid up what she borrowed of me last year, but she never said a word about the other. Dulcie has nerve, Nat; pure, unadulterated nerve. She can’t bear me lately because I run the Sans to suit myself. I always ran the club and she knows that. Last year she decided that she would like to run it herself. I sat down on her every time she tried it. She deliberately left the back door of that house unlocked the night we hazed Bean. I told her to see to it. She was edgeways at me. She never went near the door. You know what happened.”

“Dulcie will have to be told a few plain truths.” Natalie frowned displeased anxiety. The news of Dulcie’s defection was rather alarming.

“She is going to hear them from me, but not yet. I shall catch her dead to rights before I have things out with her. I’ve made up my mind just how I am going to do it, provided the rest of the Sans stand by me. It will be to their interest to do so. I mean, with their support, I can give her precisely what she deserves.”

“I’ll stand by you. Joan will, too. She is down on Dulcie for some reason or other. They haven’t been on speaking terms for a week. I asked Joan what the trouble was between them. She said Dulcie made her weary and she didn’t care whether she ever spoke to her again or not. That was all I could get out of her.”

“Hm-m!” Leslie looked interested. “I shall find out tomorrow what Joan has against her. If Dulcie hasn’t gabbed anything worse to Bess, and I presume a few others, than the news that I received a summons from his high and cranky mightiness, I will let her off with my candid opinion of her. If she has been a busy little news distributor of secret matters, she will rue it. I’ll have no traitors among the Sans.”