Face to face with her first serious temptation stood Jean Bruce. Always beyond anything else had she desired to be popular, even in the old days at the ranch when the only society in which she had a part was composed of the few neighbors in riding distance of the Lodge. But here at Primrose Hall was her first real opportunity to gratify her heart’s desire, and would she for the sake of another be compelled to give it up? For how could she accept the honor that might be bestowed upon her of being chosen for Junior class president without turning traitor to Olive. After her friends’ treatment of Olive in front of the “Theta” house on the afternoon of Peter Drummond’s visit, Jean could no longer shut her eyes to Olive’s unpopularity. What was the cause of it? Try as she might she could not find out, yet the prejudice was certainly deeper than any one could suppose. Suspecting Winifred Graham to be at the bottom of the mischief, Jean kept a close watch upon her, but if she had circulated any story against Olive no one would confess it. “Miss Ralston is so shy and queer, her appearance is so odd, I do not think she enjoys being with other girls,” these evasions of the truth were all Jean could get hold of. But in the meantime there was no doubt that Olive’s classmates absolutely refused to have her in either of the two sororities and that this insult was almost unprecedented in the history of Primrose Hall. Of course, Jean might have appealed to Miss Winthrop or one of the other teachers, asking that their influence be exerted in Olive’s behalf, but this for Olive’s own sake she was unwilling to do. For even if Olive should be forced into one of the sororities, how would it change her classmates’ attitude toward her? Would it not make them more unkind than ever? No, there were only two courses open to Jean, either she must join the sorority she had chosen without any question of Olive’s being a member or else she must decline to be admitted herself until such time as the girls should come to their senses and voluntarily desire the election of them both.

Of course, if membership in one or the other of the two sororities had been Jean’s only dilemma there had been small excuse for her hesitation. But a larger issue was at stake. Unless she became a member of a sorority and as one of its leaders could influence new girls to her cause, she might lose the Junior presidency and Winifred Graham, the head of the Kappa organization, would surely be chosen in her stead.

Jean had won her way to her present popularity in a very charming fashion, just by the power of her own personality, which is after all the greatest force in the world. She had no prominent family connections, as so many of the Primrose Hall girls had, and she continued to act as though she had no money except what was necessary for very simple requirements. Indeed, she behaved as she must have done had the ranch girls come east to boarding school before the discovery of the gold mine of Rainbow Creek. But it was a hard fight and many times the young girl longed to break faith with herself.

Before setting out on their journey, after a careful reading of the Primrose Hall catalogue, Ruth Drew had ordered the three ranch girls’ school outfits, but now these clothes seemed so simple and ordinary that at least two of the girls hated the wearing of them.

Each one of them had several pretty school dresses of light weight flannel and serge, two simple silks for afternoon entertainments and dinner use and a single party dress for the monthly dances which were a feature of Primrose Hall school life. Their underclothes were plentiful but plain. Indeed, until Jean saw her friend Margaret Belknap’s lingerie, she had supposed that only brides, and very wealthy ones at that, could have such possessions. Just think of a single item of a dozen hand-made nightgowns at fifteen dollars apiece in a school girl’s outfit; and yet these were among Margaret’s clothes. Jean openly expressed her wonder and yet managed quietly to refuse to receive a gift of two of them without hurting her new friend’s feelings.

To a girl brought up in the conventional and moneyed atmosphere that Margaret Belknap had been, Jean was a revelation. She seemed not to know the meaning of snobbery, not to care who people were so long as she liked what they were. Her manners were as charming to one person as to another and her interest as sincere. Margaret had already asked Jean to visit her in her home in New York during the Christmas holidays, as she longed to introduce her to her own family in order that they might lose their prejudice against western girls. But more especially Margaret desired to bring her Harvard College brother, Cecil, and Jean together so as to find out what they would think of one another. She was only awaiting the first opportunity. In the meantime, although Jean would not accept other gifts from her wealthy friend, she could not refuse the flowers Margaret so constantly sent her. Indeed, she went about school so much of the time with a pink carnation tucked in her hair that she soon became known as “the pink carnation girl.”

One of Jean’s greatest self-denials was not being able to send flowers to Margaret in return, but in order to retain her masquerade of poverty, most of the time she had to refrain. Only now and then she did relieve her feelings by presenting Margaret a bunch of Violets or roses regardless of cost. And occasionally a box of roses or chrysanthemums would find their way into the room of a teacher who had been especially kind to Olive, Frieda or her.

With Olive there was apparently no self-denial in failing to spread abroad the news of their wealth and in spending no pocket money, but with Frieda the case was very different. It is quite certain that Jean would never have had her way with Frieda except by appealing directly to Jack for advice and assistance. When the letter from Jack came begging her little sister to keep the secret of their wealth and to agree to Jean’s plan, Frieda’s rebellion had weakened. Not that she saw any sense in her sacrifice or was in the least reconciled to it, but simply because under the circumstances, while Jack was still so ill, she could refuse her nothing. And this self-restraint was particularly hard on both the ranch girls, because never before in their lives had they had any money of their own to spend and now Jack was sending each one of them fifty dollars a month for pin money. Think of the fortune of it, if you have had only one-tenth of that amount per month for your own use before!

And yet so far only once in all the weeks had Frieda yielded to temptation. Going up to New York one Saturday for her first visit to the grand opera, she had drifted into a big department store with half a dozen of the other school girls and their chaperon in order to buy herself a pair of gloves.

Late that same afternoon Jean and Olive, who happened at the time to be dressing for dinner, received a shock. An elegant young woman, arrayed in a dark blue velvet coat and a hat encircled with a large, lighter-blue feather, entering Jean’s room, dropped exhausted on the bed. A cry brought Olive to the scene, but either because Frieda looked too pretty in her new clothes to scold, or because she pretended to be ill from fatigue, no word of reproach was spoken to her, not even when a pale blue silk followed next morning by the early express and twenty-five dollars had to be borrowed from Olive and Jean to pay for it.

Possibly both of the older girls were secretly pleased at Frieda’s extravagance, because, while saving money is a virtuous act, it certainly is a very dull one. And while Olive was storing her income away in a lock box, wondering if it were possible to return it some day in a gift for Jack, Jean was also hoarding hers in the same fashion, but intending finally to spend it all in one grand splurge.

While Jean often regretted having taken the vow of poverty at Primrose Hall, she was always convinced of its wisdom. That there could be so much talk and thought of money as she had lately heard among the set of girls of whom Winifred Graham was leader, was repellant to her and, as Jean already had developed strong class feeling, one of her chief reasons for desiring to be elected Junior class president was in order to prove that this snobbish set was not really in control of Primrose Hall. Would Ruth and Jack and Jim Colter, the overseer of their ranch, who had always said money would be the ruination of Jean, not feel proud of her if they could hear that she won out in her battle without its help. And yet what would they think of her if she turned her back on Olive? Surely if Jean had not been so harassed and torn between the twin enemies, ambition and love, she would hardly have accused Olive of being the cause of her own unpopularity and certainly not at so unpropitious an hour as she chose. But the time for Jean to make up her mind one way or another was drawing close at hand and so far Olive had no idea of her friend’s struggle, naturally supposing that Jean had already entered the “Theta” society without mentioning it to her in order to spare her pride.

Monthly dances were an institution at Primrose Hall and it was now the evening of the first one of them. Of course, dances at girls’ boarding schools are not unusual, but the dances at Primrose Hall were, for Miss Winthrop allowed young men to be present at them. Her guests were brothers and cousins of her students or else intimate friends, carefully introduced by the girls’ parents. Miss Winthrop regarded Primrose Hall as a training school for the larger social world and desired her students to learn to accept an acquaintance with young men as simply and naturally as they did the same acquaintance with girls. If young girls and boys never saw or spoke to one another during the years of their school life, it was Miss Winthrop’s idea that they developed false notions in regard to one another and false attitudes. Therefore, although no one could be more severe than the principal of Primrose Hall toward any shadow of flirtation, she was entirely reasonable toward a simple friendship. It was because most of her girls had respected Miss Winthrop’s judgment in this matter that her monthly dances, at first much criticized, had since become a great success. Watching her students and their friends together, the older woman could often give her students the help and advice they needed in their first knowledge of young men. So when Olive sent down an imploring message asking to be excused from attendance at these monthly dances, Miss Winthrop had positively refused her request. No excuse save illness was ever accepted from either the Junior or Senior girls.

It was a quarter before eight o’clock and the dance was to begin at eight that evening, when Olive, already dressed, strolled slowly into Jean’s and Frieda’s room, pretending that she wished to assist them, but really longing for some word of sympathy or encouragement to help her in overcoming her shyness.

Frieda had slipped across the hall to show herself in her new blue gown to the Johnson sisters, therefore Jean was alone. At the very instant of Olive’s entrance she was thinking of her with a good deal of annoyance and uncertainty and now the very fact that Olive looked so charming in a pale-green crepe dress made her crosser than ever. When Olive was so pretty how could the school girls fail to like her?

But Olive immediately on entering the room and entirely unconscious of Jean’s anger, stood silent for a moment lost in admiration of her friend’s appearance. In truth, to-night Jean was “a pink carnation girl,” for Margaret Belknap had sent her a great box of the deep rose-colored variety and she wore a wreath of them in her hair. Quite by accident her frock happened to be of the same color and the rose was particularly becoming to her healthy pallor and the dark brown of her hair, while to-night the excitement of attending her first school dance made Jean’s brown eyes sparkle and her lips a deep crimson.

“I do wish Ruth could see you to-night,” Olive said wistfully, “for I think she has already cared more for you than even for Frieda or Jack.”

“And not for you at all, Olive, I suppose,” Jean answered ungraciously. “I do wish you would get over the habit of depreciating yourself. Didn’t Miss Winthrop say the other day that we generally got what we expected in this world and if you don’t expect people to like you and are too shy and proud to let them, why how can they be nice to you?”

Olive colored, but did not reply at once.

“I do wish Jack were here,” Jean continued, “for she would have some influence with you and not let you be so pokey and unfriendly. I am sure I have tried in vain to stir you up and now I think I’ll write Jack and Ruth how you are behaving. Really, you are spoiling Frieda’s and my good times at school by being so stiff and touchy.” And Jean, knowing that Olive did not yet understand how her failure to be invited into either sorority was influencing her chance for the class election, yet had the grace to turn her face away.

For Olive had grown white. “Please don’t write to Jack or Ruth, Jean,” she asked quietly, “I do not wish them to know I am not a success at school and if you tell them that no one here likes me they will then know that I am unhappy and will be worried, and Jack must not have any worry now. It isn’t that I don’t try to make the girls like me. You are mistaken if you think I don’t try; but oh, what is the matter with me, Jean, that makes me so unpopular?”

In an instant Jean’s arms were about Olive and she was kissing her warmly. “Don’t be a goose, dear, there is nothing the matter with you and you are not unpopular really; it is just some horrid, silly mistake. Now promise me that to-night you won’t be frightened and you will be friendly with everybody.” In this instant Jean made up her mind that in some unexplainable way Olive must be standing in her own light or else her classmates must see how charming she was.

Olive promised with a quaking heart, knowing that many eyes would soon be upon her to-night, including Miss Winthrop’s, who would be noticing her unpopularity. And would she know a single guest at the dance?

Frieda and Mollie Johnson had already disappeared, so that Jean and Olive went down to the big reception rooms together, holding each other’s hands like little girls.