The junior class election taught Julia Peyton one unflattering truth. She was far from popular enough to win a nomination to the class presidency. Augusta Forbes directed her efforts, heart and soul toward the nomination of Doris Monroe. Doris as zealously rooted for Calista Wilmot, who had come to be greatly liked among the Hamilton students. Calista won the nomination by a majority of five votes and was subsequently elected president.

Notwithstanding the fact that Julia Peyton had not “a look in” at the presidency she was not without sympathetic support so far as a number of the juniors at Wayland Hall were concerned. These had been the sophs of the previous year of whom Leila Harper had signally disapproved. Then she had rated the Hall as a house divided against itself. With the opening again of the college she had not changed her opinion.

Counting Leslie Cairns she could number only fourteen staunch democrats at the Hall. There were now eight freshmen at the Hall whose politics were yet unannounced. Of the twenty-three other residents there was but one on whom she could rely as a neutral. This was Miss Duncan, a tall girl with a ministerial air who had succeeded in passing the set of “Brooke Hamilton Perfect Examination Papers” and had been awarded the special room at Wayland Hall set aside for this purpose. It had been vacant since Katherine Langly had attained that honor.

Hardly had the stir attending the junior election died away when Julia Peyton began agitating the subject of the select social sorority which she had been impatiently waiting to organize. She and Clara had privately decided that it should be called the “Orchid” Club—the name typifying, in her opinion, the select and exclusive.

Mildred Ferguson, the freshman in 17 of whom Julia had glowingly spoken to Clara, had hailed the idea of the club with flattering enthusiasm. She was a small, slim girl with a pair of laughing blue eyes, a bright brown bob and a bold boyish face. She drove her own car, wore clothes of distinctive smartness and regarded everything in the way of luxury as having been produced for her benefit. She had had everything she fancied from babyhood. In consequence she never paused to consider anyone except herself. She was not interested in college except as a necessary bridge which had to be crossed into Society.

She soon found the poise of the post graduates at Wayland Hall not to her taste. The Bertram girls bored her, and she stood in secret awe of Doris Monroe and Leslie Cairns. Miss Duncan she dubbed the Eternal Dig. She found the more artificial standards of Julia Peyton, Clara Carter and their junior supporters more to her liking. She enjoyed having a “stand-in” with the juniors at the Hall and professed animated interest in the organizing of the Orchid Club. At heart she was so thoroughly snobbish as to agree with Julia’s sentiments in regard to it.

Due to one delay or another, it was the early part of November before the Orchid Club, consisting of twenty-six members, held its first meeting in the living room of the Hall, Julia having haughtily requested the use of it from Miss Remson beforehand. To her deep satisfaction Julia was elected president of the club. Mildred Ferguson, however, won the vice-presidency, and with it Clara Carter’s undying resentment.

There were no other offices to be filled. The Orchid Club was to be of a purely social nature, with no need of a secretary or treasurer. There was to be a dinner or luncheon twice each week at the expense of one or another of the club members, and a monthly meeting in the living room of the Hall.

“The Screech Owl has gone into local politics and is now a president,” Muriel breezily informed Leslie Cairns and Doris Monroe as she entered Doris’s and her room late one November afternoon to find the two deep in a discussion of psycho-analysis.

Leslie had taken up psychology and political science, the two subjects she had had on her senior program at the time of her expulsion from Hamilton. Thus far, since her return to Hamilton, she had wondered at the lack of unpleasant stir which had marked her reappearance on the campus as a student. It seemed that she might, after all, be fated to escape the harsh criticism which she felt would be justly her due. She had been agreeably disappointed in that Julia Peyton had not, to her knowledge, brought up against her as a matter of gossip the eventful night of the Rustic Romp.

“Julia Peyton a president?” Doris Monroe turned her blue-green eyes amusedly upon Muriel. “Of what, may I ask?”

“Of the Orchid Club. Isn’t that a select name. It suggests luxury, doesn’t it? Something like the Sans—I beg your pardon, Leslie.” Muriel checked herself, looking comically contrite. “I never think of you now as a San,” she went on in further apology.

“Don’t mind me,” Leslie waved off the apology. “You are exactly right in what you just said,” she continued half grimly. “I have been keeping a wary eye upon Miss Peyton and Miss Carter since I came to the Hall. I fully expected they might start trouble for me. I am amazed to think they haven’t. Leila is right, too, in saying the Hall is a house divided against itself. It’s not our side of it, though, that has put down a dividing line. By ‘our side’ I mean the Travelers, the Bertram girls and Doris. This Miss Peyton isn’t the sort of menace to the Hall that I used to be.” She smiled her slow smile. “She is like Lillian Walbert.”

“Right-o,” Muriel agreed with emphasis. “I’d forgotten all about her. Julia Peyton is more aggressive, though. Miss Walbert’s favorite amusement was gossiping, just the same. Only she thought it was automobiling.”

Muriel broke into a merry little run of laughter, an accompaniment to her mischievous statement regarding Lillian Walbert as a motorist.

“She was the worst flivver at driving a car that I ever recall having seen,” Leslie said, her black eyes twinkling reminiscently. She was not likely to forget the many ridiculous situations in which Lillian figured at various times and points on Hamilton Highway as a result of her fatuous belief in herself as a driver.

“A gossip is never anything either clever, or useful,” Doris Monroe observed with disdainful wisdom. “Julia Peyton is really quite stupid. She isn’t consistent, even in her villainy. She never sticks to one story. This isn’t intended as back-biting. I told her as much last spring. It is too bad she happened to be the one you tripped up with your umbrella, Leslie, at the Romp last spring. But I wouldn’t let it worry me. Julia Peyton always over-reaches herself. If I should chance to hear any spiteful remarks from her of you—” Doris paused, smiling with dangerous sweetness.

“Goldie to the rescue. Thank you, good pal.” Leslie flashed her a grateful glance. “I can fight my own fights. I’m not exactly crazy to get into the limelight here at the Hall, on my father’s account. Still, I am not an ex-student who came back a doormat,” she declared with dry significance.

She rose, smiled her slow smile at her companions and walked to the door. “See you later,” she nodded. She opened the door and was gone.

“Oh, goodness.” Muriel collapsed into a chair, self-vexation plainly evident on her pretty features. “I shouldn’t have made that slip about the Sans. I am afraid I’ve hurt Leslie’s feelings.”

“No, you haven’t.” Doris shook a positive head. “I know Leslie better than you. She’s worried about something; probably about Miss Remson. She is afraid, that, if Miss Peyton should begin gossiping about her, Miss Remson might be blamed for admitting her again to the Hall to board. That’s why I just said to her that I’d fight for her.”

“So will Miss Remson. She can fight her own battles, and Leslie’s too,” was Muriel’s quick assurance.

In Room 15 Leslie was at that moment dejectedly considering the very contingency Doris had mentioned to Muriel. Out of her long leadership of the Sans Soucians she had derived at least one benefit. She had learned to read character with surprising accuracy. A few days residence at Wayland Hall had put her in possession of the knowledge that Mildred Ferguson, rather than Julia Peyton, was the real promoter of the Orchid Club. Leslie had taken reflective stock of the self-assured smartly-attired freshman. Julia would be the club president in name only. Mildred would be the real power behind the throne. Mildred reminded her of Lola Elster, an ingrate whom she had boosted to campus popularity in the old days. Lola had had one commendable trait, however. She had ever tended strictly to her own affairs. Nor could any one persuade her to join any kind of campus conspiracy. She had “played safe” invariably to a disloyal degree. Mildred resembled her only in point of selfishness.

Leslie shrewdly rated Mildred as quarrel-seeking and gossiping, provided she might gain by adopting such a course. She was more formidable than Julia because she had a deceiving, attractive air of good-fellowship which she kept well over her hard, self-seeking nature.

What Leslie longed now to do was to make friendly overtures to Mildred before she should succeed in egging shallow, spiteful Julia Peyton on to “stir up a big fuss at the Hall.” Leslie was satirically confident that she could, if she should try, quickly and effectually grow chummy with Mildred because of Peter Cairns’ millions. She could soon influence Mildred to desert Julia’s banner and enlist under hers. Mildred had already exhibited calculating signs of friendliness toward her.

Leslie somberly considered the idea from all sides, and shook a stern head. That was the easy way; the way made possible by money. It was the way she had always taken in the past. It had invariably brought her chagrin and failure. Now the rocky road of democracy must be her choice. Already she foresaw a condition of snobbery sprouting at the Hall which was similar to the one which Marjorie Dean had once fought to uproot.

“You are in for trouble, Cairns II,” she said aloud. “You can’t go placidly along about what you think is your business. Your business is to stand up for democracy—the way Marjorie Dean has always stood up for it. This Orchid crowd is going to give an imitation of the Sans at the Hall. I can see that. They need a change of policy. I’ll have to try to supply it—in the right way.” She laughed mirthlessly. “The right way” promised to be a rocky road indeed.