As a result of the agreement Leila, Leslie, Marjorie and Vera had made among themselves on the night of the freshman frolic toward winning over Stephanie Norris and her chums, Leila had decided to open the season at the Playhouse with “Henry the Fifth,” rather than “The Merchant of Venice.”

It was with no particular pleasure, however, that, on an evening not long after the frolic she knocked upon Miss Norris’s door for a polite interview with the difficult freshman, concerning the honor she proposed to extend to her. “And if I should suddenly come flying back here, as though blown down the hall by a strong gale, feel no surprise!” she confided to Vera. “I am not counting upon a cordial reception.”

To her surprise, she found the arrogant freshman inclined to be gracious. Stephanie had come into a realization of several pertinent truths since the night of the freshman frolic. One of them was a nettled realization that she had behaved unwisely in flying into a fit of temper with Miss Ogden. Her own particular coterie of chums had sympathized with her, with the exception of Laura Taylor, her roommate. Mildred Ferguson was also on her side. She was not so sure of Mildred’s roommate, Miss Watson, who had escorted Laura to the frolic. Laura had voiced frank disapproval of Stephanie’s rude outburst when they had reached the privacy of their room after the frolic was over. They had in consequence quarreled hotly and had since been barely upon speaking terms.

The article which had appeared in “The Campus Echo,” three days after the frolic, relative to the “Playhouse,” had not added to Stephanie’s peace of mind. She had not supposed “that horrid Miss Cairns” to be of so much importance on the campus. According to Mildred Ferguson, Miss Cairns had no right, whatever, to be on the campus. Her father’s money alone had influenced President Matthews to overlook her many misdemeanors. She had actually been expelled from college, then later had been permitted to return to Hamilton as a matter of favoritism. As Miss Ogden’s roommate, she might be expected to sympathize with “the tiresome little creature.”

Stephanie was still brimming with rancor against the offending freshman. Thanks to Miss Ogden’s stupid clumsiness not only her lovely important gown, but also her high hope of winning the beauty contest had been ruined. She had vengefully determined “to get even” with the diminutive freshman to the point of having already considered various spiteful schemes for humiliating the object of her spite. What she purposed to do, when she had finally hit upon a telling plan of revenge, was to carry it out with a secrecy that should permit of no discovery.

Leila’s unexpected call, together with the flattering import of her errand, filled Stephanie with a sense of gratified triumph. She took good care to hide it under a forced pretense of graciousness, however. Her unreasoning dislike for the clever manager of the Playhouse must not be permitted to stand in the way of her own popularity. She had “lost out” wretchedly in the beauty contest. She could not afford any further “flivvers.” Nevertheless, she chose to demur over the stellar role which Leila now offered her on the plea that she would like to “think the matter over” before coming to a decision.

Leila presently returned to her own room, not in the least deceived by the scheming freshman, but half sorry she had asked her to take part in the coming Shakespearean play. “The deed is done,” she dryly informed Vera as she entered their room. “Let us hope it has not been ill done. I am less than ever taken with Miss Norris. She has little more college spirit than a basket of potatoes.”

“How very uncharitable you are,” Vera giggled at Leila’s disgusted comparison.

“Am I not?” The Irish girl’s half-frowning features brightened into a faint grin. She thereupon gave Vera a brief account of her interview with Stephanie, ending with: “I am the willing slave of democracy, but it is a hard master.”

With Leila’s exit from Stephanie’s room, her roommate, Laura Taylor, who had been present during Leila’s call, broke the constraint which had hung heavily upon the two since the night of the frolic.

“You are in luck, Steve,” she observed with quiet significance. “You can afford to forget about the beauty contest flivver. Something much better has come your way. Go to it. You can act. You ought to make a wonderful King Hal.”

“Yes; I can act.” Stephanie walked over to her mirror, chin raised to a complacent angle. “I hope the costumes for the part are good. If I don’t like them, I shall send to a New York costumer’s for others that may suit me better.”

“Yes?” Behind Stephanie’s back Laura’s plump shoulders shrugged bored disapproval.

“It’s exactly as I told you it would be.” Stephanie suddenly swung around from the mirror, speaking with triumphant energy. “Those snippy P. G.’s, Miss Harper and Miss Cairns, simply had to recognize my worth. It looks to me as though Miss Harper might be on my side, and not on Miss Ogden’s. Perhaps Miss Cairns has had enough of her, too. Both have no doubt heard about our fuss at the beauty contest.”

“Listen to me, Steve,” Laura burst forth impatiently, “for goodness’ sake stop kidding yourself along. You happen to be the type Miss Harper happened to need for King Henry. That’s the reason, and the only reason why she has offered you the part.”

“It is not,” Stephanie flared back hotly. “You are—”

“Kindly permit me to finish.” Laura spoke in a tone which Stephanie recognized and dreaded. It meant that the wall of silence was likely to loom again between them, to remain raised indefinitely.

“Oh, pardon me,” she apologized with covert sarcasm.

“Neither Miss Harper nor Miss Cairns are the sort to ‘take sides’ in the way you seem to believe they might. If they were, they would certainly not be on yours. You were far more to blame the other night at the frolic than was Miss Ogden. If you had spoken to me, as you spoke to her, I should have been tempted to make more trouble for you than she made.”

“I was not to blame. She ruined my gown, then flew at me like a—a tiger,” stormed Stephanie.

“But not until you had called her a clumsy idiot, a bounder and various other uncomplimentary names,” Laura stolidly reminded. “You owe that girl an apology.”

“I,” Stephanie indicated herself with an outraged fore finger, “apologize to that miserable little upstart? I’ll never forgive her for having put me in such a humiliating position. I’ll find a way to get back at her for it, too. Remember what I say.”

“Oh, drop it,” Laura commented wearily. “The sooner you live down your part of that fuss, the better off you’ll be. And don’t come to me with any of your ridiculous revenge schemes. Nothing doing.”

“You talk like a prig—like one of those silly dormitory students,” Stephanie threw back with supreme contempt. “What has come over you, Laura Taylor? You act entirely different from the good pal you used to be to me.” Stephanie cunningly appealed to Laura from a standpoint of loyalty. Laura hated disloyalty.

“I’ve been loyal to you, if that’s what you mean.” Laura turned a coolly level gaze upon her friend’s petulant features. “Everything at Hamilton is so different from the way things were at prep school—more inspiring, and—” Laura paused, then added reflectively, “worth while.”

“Horrors! I hope you haven’t enlisted under the reform banner,” Stephanie sneered. “It looks fatally like it.”

“Don’t let it worry you.” A quick flush rose to the stout girl’s plump cheeks. “Watch your own step. I mean that in good part, Steve.”

“Thank you,” came the disdainful retort. “I hope I am capable of managing my own affairs.”

“I hope so, too,” Laura returned with a gravity of tone that made Stephanie feel vaguely uncomfortable.

Three days later she wrote Leila a formal note containing her acceptance of the Shakespearean part. Rather to her disappointment, Leila promptly responded with an equally formal note of thanks, and a brief request that she report at the theatre at one o’clock the following Saturday afternoon for a reading of the drama to be later enacted. Stephanie had hoped that Leila would again come to her room, having decided upon a certain lofty pose which she intended to assume during the call. She was also desirous of learning whether Miss Ogden had been included in the cast, an inclusion against which she had determined politely to protest. She had resolved to make life miserable for the offending freshman to the point of driving her from Hamilton College, provided she could accomplish such a revenge. If she could not, it would not be from lack of trying. A pampered only child, Stephanie had grown to young womanhood with a fixed idea of her own importance. Nor was anyone permitted long to stand in her way, whom she could succeed in ousting from it.

Her attendance of the reading of the play at the Playhouse on the following Saturday afternoon revealed to her the not unwelcome fact that Miss Ogden was missing from the cast. It would save her the necessity of a protest, which, she had sulkily reflected, might have reacted to her disadvantage. She was full of secret satisfaction over the good fortune that had visited her, vanity prompting her to repudiate Laura’s blunt surmise of how it had come about.

The swift passing of the autumn days found her strictly upon her most gracious behavior toward Leila, Vera and the other members of the cast. Leslie she could not endure. Fortunately for her she seldom came into contact with the busy, reserved manager. Leslie had become everything to the charming little theatre from manager to property man. While Leila directed and rehearsed the actors with unfailing patience and good nature, Leslie was frequently a silent observer at rehearsals. Seated far back in the auditorium little that went on on the stage escaped her critical eyes.

There had been no need for Stephanie to be dissatisfied with her several costumes. In presenting the theatre to the campus Peter Cairns had shown lavish generosity in the matter of wardrobe. He had also placed a costume fund at Leila’s disposal to be used at her discretion. The love of acting being a part of Stephanie’s vain make-up, she did well in the stellar role of king. She had every reason to be happy, in the new pleasant environment which the rehearsals furnished, but was not. She continued to nurse her grudge against Jewel Ogden, never, for a moment relenting toward the despised freshman.

As a result of the quarrel at the frolic Jewel was still very sore at heart. She had girlishly admired Stephanie for her good looks and imperial manner, and had been cut to the quick by the latter’s harsh treatment of herself. She had mentally dwelt upon the disaster to Stephanie’s hopes, that she had grown pitifully sensitive. She kept it well hidden, however, under her usual brisk, out-spoken manner. Leslie alone understood that the little girl had not yet emerged from her valley of humiliation. Following her vehement grief on the night of the frolic she had afterward become mute on the subject of her wrongs, refusing to volunteer another word relative to them. Leslie, sympathetically silent, had asked no question.

Leila had already approached Jewel on the subject of her new play, “The Leprachaun,” to be enacted later in the college year. This with a view toward “making honors even” and as an indication to Miss Ogden of the impartiality of her policy, germane to matters theatrical. The freshman had accepted the stellar part in the new play which was still engaging Leila’s serious literary effort. The Irish girl had determined to make the fanciful drama the best she had yet written. She had carefully explained to Jewel how much the quaint Irish play meant to her, and Jewel had, for the time, emerged from under her secret cloud to brighten over the flattering prospect ahead of her. Later, she dropped again into her former half despondent mood, a change which Leslie quickly noted.

“Cheer up, Jewel, and come on over to Baretti’s to dinner. I feel like changing my eats tonight. You eata da spaghet?” She paused before Jewel in droll imitation of Signor Baretti, the friendly proprietor of the restaurant.

“Yes, I do. I love Italian cooking.” Jewel’s sober face lightened.

“Fine business.” Leslie whisked the little girl into her coat before she had time to change her mind, dropping her small felt hat gently on the curly black head.

They were presently seated at an alcove table of the quaint inn, ordering a full Italian dinner that began with Baretti’s special snappy relish and would end with Spumoni ice cream and delicious Italian cake. It was still early for the usual nightly throng of college diners at the inn. Besides Leslie and Jewel the tables showed not more than a sprinkling of students, none of whom either girl knew other than by sight. They had just begun their dessert when a party of students entered the restaurant to an accompanying ripple of noise and laughter.

“Oh.” Jewel’s dessert spoon struck her plate with a nervous little clang as she recognized in the entrants a part of Stephanie Norris’s pals, together with Mildred Ferguson. Stephanie, however, was not among them.

They seated themselves at a not far distant table in a laughing flutter, their eyes busily roving the great room.

“I’ve finished my dessert,” Jewel’s face had suddenly lost its brightness. “Let’s go, Leslie,” she entreated.

“We will soon,” Leslie nodded, “but we are not going to run away because of that crowd. I refuse to be cheated of my coffee, and you haven’t yet taken a sip of yours.”

“I don’t want it. I’d rather go. Those girls—you don’t understand,” she declared sadly. “They—that Miss Ferguson—she has said hateful things about me. If we stay she will begin talking about me, and the others will stare at me, and laugh among themselves. I can’t bear it.” Her red underlip had begun to tremble.

“Steady, kid. Pay no attention to them.” Leslie sent a coolly appraising glance at the tableful of girls that was not without its effect. The staring process had already covertly begun, but more than one pair of eyes wavered from the challenging inquiry of her black eyes. The group turned attention to the ordering of their dinner with a promptness that brought the semblance of a grim smile to Leslie’s lips.

“What has Miss Ferguson been saying about you?” was Leslie’s first question, when ten minutes later, the two girls had stepped out into the soft fall darkness.

“The same sort of things Miss Norris said to me in the gym when I spoiled her dress,” quavered Jewel.

“You are positive that she has said them? You know, don’t you, that campus gossip is anything but reliable? Remarks often become badly twisted on the way around,” Leslie made dry assertion.

“Yes; I know she has. Miss Felton heard her say something unkind about me to Miss Mayhew the other day and censured her for it. I’ve heard of things she has said from two other freshmen, too. They advised me to go to her and have it out with her. I’d rather not do it. I’m not afraid, but it seems more dignified to ignore her hatefulness, if I can. I made one mistake in answering Miss Norris on the night at the frolic, I don’t care to make a second.”

“You have the right idea. Stick to it. No one but yourself can make, or mar you.” Unconsciously Leslie repeated the very words she had said on a certain spring night of the previous year when a bevy of girls, headed by Mildred Ferguson, had arrayed itself against her.

“That’s the way I think, too. You can see for yourself how much better it was not to let it be known on the campus that I used to be a trapeze performer,” Jewel said soberly. “I’d have been talked over and sneered at until I’d have been glad to leave Hamilton.”

“Not by the girls who count as representative of Hamilton,” Leslie sturdily disagreed. “You’ve lost your nerve. Find it again, and don’t let the hissing of these geese worry you.”

“I’ll try to find it again.” Jewel gave a little half-hearted laugh. “Just the same I’m glad only you know about my stage days. You—you’re sure you never mentioned it, even to Miss Harper?” Jewel’s voice rose anxiously.

“Certainly not; even though I had, you’d still be safe,” Leslie humorously assured. “She’s an even better secret-keeper than I.”

Long after lights were out that night and Jewel slept, vastly comforted by Leslie’s kindly effort to cheer her up, Leslie lay wide-awake, pondering a summary method of interference in the freshman’s behalf against the persecution of Mildred Ferguson’s gossiping tongue. She finally dropped to sleep without having hit upon a decided scheme of action, though daylight and waking would again renew her thoughtful consideration of the problem.