"I don't know which was the most highly polished, his manners or his shiny bronze face," ejaculated Judy when the door of No. 5 had closed upon Otoyo and her honorable father.

The small grizzled Japanese gentleman had taken tea American fashion with his daughter's Quadrangle friends. With punctilious enjoyment he had eaten everything that was offered to him, cloudbursts, salmon sandwiches, stuffed olives and chocolate cake. The girls had heard that raw carp was a favorite Japanese dish, and salmon being the only fish convenient, they had bought several cans of it in the village in honor of the national taste.

"Wasn't his English wonderful?" put in Margaret. "He said to me, 'I entertain exceedingly hopes in my daughter's educationally efforts.'"

"He asked me if I were quadrangular," laughed Edith. "I said no, quadrilateral."

"The funny part of it was that he used all those big words and spoke with such a perfect accent and yet he didn't understand anything we said," observed Molly. "All the time I was telling him how much we loved Otoyo and what a dear clever child she was, he blinked and smiled and said: 'Indeed. Is it truly? Exceedingly interestingly.'"

While they were laughing and discussing Otoyo's father, Adele Windsor, Judy's new bosom friend, walked into the room. She had formed a habit of entering their room without announcing herself, an unpardonable breach of etiquette at Wellington, as well it might be anywhere. Lately she had made herself very much at home at No. 5, lounging on the divan with a novel between lectures, or occupying the most comfortable chair while she jotted down notes on a tablet. Nance called her "the intruder" to Molly, and once she had even ventured to remark to Judy:

"I should think your friend would know that it's customary to knock on a door before opening it."

"It's because she's never had any privacy," explained Judy apologetically. "She was brought up in a New York flat and slept on a parlor sofa all her life until two years ago when her father began suddenly to make money."

"Being brought up in a parlor ought to give her parlor manners," Nance thought, but she had not voiced her thought to the sensitive Judy, who really had not intended to force Adele Windsor on her chums. It was only that Adele had a way of taking for granted she was persona grata, that Nance thought was rather too free.

Molly, always polite to guests whether welcome or not, greeted Adele cordially and made her a cup of tea.

"We were just discussing Otoyo Sen's funny little father," she explained, in order to draw Adele into the conversation. "He's been here to call—the queerest English!" And Molly repeated some of Mr. Sen's absurd speeches.

Adele listened with interest. She was always interested in everything, one might almost say inquisitive, and she had a peculiar way of making people say things they regretted. Judy, artless soul, had told her everything she knew long ago. And now, turning her intelligent dark eyes from one to another and occasionally putting out a pointed question, Adele succeeded in starting a new discussion on Otoyo's father. With the most innocent intentions in the world, they imitated his voice and manner, his stiff formal bows and his funny squeaky laugh.

It was not until later when the friends had scattered to tidy up for supper that Molly felt any misgivings about having made fun of Otoyo's father, and these she kept to herself, feeling, indeed, that they were unworthy of her. Adele had not left with the others. She was to remain for supper with Judy, and the two girls sat chatting together while Molly took a cat-nap and Nance began clearing away the tea things.

"You shall not help," she had insisted, when Molly had offered to do her share. "You are dead tired and I'm not, so go and rest and don't bother."

Nance's manner was often brusquest when she was tenderest, but Molly understood her perfectly. She was very tired. What with her new duties on the Commune, club meetings and the pressure of studies, the world was turning so fast she felt that she might fly off into space at any moment.

"Professor Green would have scolded me for trying to overdo things," she was thinking, half sadly. Gradually her body relaxed and her eyelids dropped. Through the mists of half consciousness she heard the musical rattle of the tea things, and presently there came the catchy, rather nasal tones of Adele's voice over the clatter of china and silver.

"I like all your friends, Judy. They are remarkably bright."

"Aren't they a sparkling little coterie," answered Judy proudly.

"Now, Miss Wakefield is a born leader. Of course a leader must have the gift of gab. She's a great talker, isn't she? Takes the conversation right into her own hands and keeps it there, doesn't she?"

"Margaret does talk a lot," Judy admitted.

"Too much perhaps for any one not deeply interested, but then of course I always am. Now, Edith Williams is the brighter of the two, but she knows it, don't you think so?"

"Well, I suppose she does," replied Judy reluctantly.

"Katherine has more surface brightness, but of course she's superficial, that is, compared with her sister."

"Edith is the brightest," said Judy.

"Mabel Hinton is all right, but she does dress so atrociously. And those glasses! Can you imagine how she can wear them?"

Molly felt suddenly hot. She flung the comfort off and sat up impatiently.

"I should think Judy would have sense enough to see she's being made to discuss every friend she has," she thought.

"The Intruder" had now commenced on pretty Jessie Lynch. "Awfully jolly to have so many beaux. Most men-crazy girls have none," she was saying, when Molly marched into the room. She had not decided what she was going to say, but she intended to say something.

"How red your face is, Molly, dear," observed Judy carelessly.

"And how fortunate that it's so seldom that way," went on the imperturbable Miss Windsor. "Red faces are not becoming to red heads, that is, generally speaking, but your skin is such an exquisite texture, Miss Brown, that it doesn't matter whether it's red or white. Did you see where a girl had written to a beauty editor and asked for a cure for blushing? The editor told her that age was the only cure. Sometimes, however, one gets very good suggestions off those pages, good hygienic suggestions, I mean."

And so Adele carried the conversation along at such a swift pace that Molly did not have the chance to say what she had intended. She had always regarded that kind of talk with supreme contempt: praise that tapered into a sting. "It would have been more honest to have given the sting without the praise," she thought, "and less hypocritical and censorious."

It was Adele's trick to make you agree with her, and if you did, lead you on to further and more dangerous ground, until you suddenly felt yourself placed in the awkward position of saying something unkind without having intended it.

It was strange that Judy was so blind to this trait of Adele's. But then Adele was very attractive. There was a kind of abandon about her that suited Judy's style. They had a great many tastes in common. Adele was very talented and the two girls often went off on Saturday afternoon sketching expeditions together.

"Nance, I'm ashamed of myself for thinking such things," whispered Molly, on the way down to supper, "but there is something almost Mephistophelean about Adele Windsor."

"She-devil, you mean," broke in Nance bluntly.

Molly laughed.

"Mephistophelean was more high sounding. Besides she's just like Mephistopheles in 'Faust.' She doesn't speak right out, only whispers and suggests. Innuendo is the word, isn't it? Sometimes I'm really frightened for Judy."

"She is awfully crushed, but she'll wake up soon enough. She always does," answered Nance carelessly.

But Molly had secret misgivings, in spite of Nance's assurances, and furthermore, she was convinced that the crafty Adele was well aware of these misgivings and that it gave her much private enjoyment to make Molly uncomfortable.

"The trouble is I can't fight her with her own weapons," Molly thought. "I'm not clever enough, and besides I wouldn't if I could. After all, boys' methods of settling disputes by drawing a circle and fighting it out are somehow much more honest. It would be worth a black eye and a bloody nose to lay forever all that innuendo and sly insinuation."

"She's hypnotized Judy into putting her up for the Shakespeareans and the Olla Podridas," said Nance. "And she'll get in. Nobody will dream of blackballing her, you'll see."

Molly compressed her lips into a firm red line and said nothing, but she was almost led to wish that school societies did not exist at all.

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