Marjorie Dean Part 9

"I'm glad you like it," beamed Mignon. "But you haven't told me yours."

"I haven't any cards with me," apologized Mary. "My name is Mary Raymond."

"Have you lived long in Sanford?" inquired Mignon suavely. She had already decided that a girl who was in sympathy with her on one point might prove to be worth cultivating.

"Only a short time. My mother is in Colorado for her health and I am living in Marjorie Dean's home until Mother returns next summer."

Mary's innocent words had an electrical effect on the French girl. Her heavy brows drew together in a scowl and her dark face set in hard lines.

"Then that settles it," she said coldly. "You and I can _never_ be friends." She switched about in her seat with an angry jerk.

Mary leaned forward and touched her on the shoulder. "I don't understand," she murmured. "Please tell me what you mean."

The French girl swung halfway about. She regarded Mary with narrowed eyes. Was it possible that Marjorie Dean had never mentioned her to her friend?

"Hasn't Miss Dean ever spoken to you of me?" she asked abruptly.

Mary shook her head. "No, I am sure I never before heard of you. I don't know many Sanford girls yet. I have met Miss Atwell and Miss Macy and a few others who were at Miss Stevens' dance last night."

"So, Miss Stevens is doing social stunts," sneered Mignon. "Quite a change from last year, I should say. I used to be friends with Susan Atwell and Jerry Macy, but this Stevens girl made mischief between us and broke up our old crowd entirely. Your friend, Miss Dean, took sides with them, too, and helped the thing along. She made a perfect idiot of herself over Constance Stevens. Oh, well, never mind. I'm not going to say another word about it. I'm sorry we can't be friends. I'm sure we'd get along famously together. It is impossible, though. Miss Dean wouldn't let you."

Mary suddenly sat very erect. She had listened in amazement to Mignon's recital. Could she believe her ears? Had her hitherto-beloved Marjorie been guilty of trouble-making? And all for the sake of Constance Stevens. Marjorie must indeed care a great deal for her. She had not been mistaken, then, in her belief that she had been supplanted in her chum's heart. And now Mignon was suggesting that Marjorie would not allow her to be friends with the girl whom she had wronged. Mary did not stop to consider that there are always two sides to a story. Swayed by her resentment against Constance, she preferred to believe anything which she might hear against her.

"Please understand, once and for all, that Marjorie has nothing to say about whoever I choose to have for a friend," she said with decision. "I hope I am free to do as I please. I shall be very glad to know you better, Miss La Salle, and I am sorry that you have been so badly treated."

The ringing of the first recitation-bell broke in upon the conversation.

"Oh, gracious, I haven't looked at the bulletin board. Excuse me, Miss Raymond. I'll see you later and we'll have a nice long talk. I'm sure I shall be pleased to have _you_ for a friend."

"Are you going to recite geometry in this first section?" asked Mary eagerly. The students were already filing out of the great room.

"Let me see." Mignon consulted the bulletin board. "Why, yes, I might as well."

"Oh, splendid!" glowed Mary. "Then you can show me the way to the geometry cla.s.sroom."

"Delighted, I'm sure," returned Mignon. Her black eyes sparkled with triumph. At last she had found a way to even her score with Marjorie Dean. With almost uncanny shrewdness she had divined what Marjorie herself had not discovered. This blue-eyed baby of a girl, for Mignon mentally characterized her as such, was jealous of Marjorie's friends.h.i.+p with the Stevens girl. Very well. She would take a hand and help matters along. Of course there was a strong chance that it might all come to nothing. Marjorie might take Mary in charge the moment school was over and tell her a few things. Yet that was hardly possible. Much as she hated the brown-eyed girl who had worsted her at every point, in her own cowardly heart lurked a respect for Marjorie's high standard of honor.

So far Mary knew nothing against her. Perhaps she would never know.

Perhaps if Marjorie and Jerry and Irma tried to prejudice Mary against her, the girl would rebel and send them about their business. She had looked stupidly obstinate when she said, "I hope I am free to do as I please." Mignon smiled maliciously as she walked down the long aisle ahead of Mary.

Marjorie had risen from her seat at the sound of the first bell. Now she gazed anxiously up the aisle toward Mary's seat. She looked relieved as she saw her chum approaching. She bowed coldly to Mignon as she pa.s.sed.

"Oh, Mary," she said, "I was looking for you. If you are going to recite geometry now, then please don't go. Wait and recite in my section. You know, we said we'd recite it together."

Mary's blue eyes glowed resentfully. "I've made up my programme," she answered with cool defiance. "I can't change it now. Miss La Salle is going to show me the way to the geometry cla.s.sroom. I'll see you later."

Without waiting for a reply she marched on, leaving Marjorie to stare after her with troubled eyes.

CHAPTER X

THE VALLEY OF MISUNDERSTANDING

For a brief instant Marjorie continued to stare after the retreating form of her chum, oblivious to the steady stream of girls pa.s.sing by her. Then, seized with a sudden idea, she slipped into her seat and hastily consulted the bulletin board. The ringing of the third bell found her hurrying from the aisle toward the door. That brief survey of the schedule had resulted in an entire change of her programme. She had decided to recite geometry in the morning section. It meant giving up the cherished last hour in the afternoon which she had reserved for study. She would have to recite Latin at that time. Well, that did not matter so much. Reciting geometry in the same section with Mary was what counted. She had experienced a curious feeling of alarm as she had watched Mary and Mignon La Salle disappear through the big doorway side by side. Mignon was the last person she had supposed Mary would meet. To be sure, there was nothing particularly alarming in their meeting. As yet they were comparative strangers to each other. She had noted that Miss Merton had a.s.signed the French girl to the seat in front of Mary.

It was, therefore, quite probable that Mary had inquired the way to the geometry cla.s.sroom and Mignon had volunteered to conduct her to it.

Marjorie's sober face lightened a little as she hastened down the corridor to the geometry room. Miss Nelson, the instructor in mathematics, was on the point of closing the door as she hurriedly approached. She smiled as she saw the pretty soph.o.m.ore, and continued to hold the door open until Marjorie had crossed the threshold. The latter gave an eager glance about the room. The cla.s.srooms were provided with rows of single desks similar to those in the study hall. Mary was occupying one of them well toward the front of the room. Directly ahead of her sat the French girl. On one of the back seats was Jerry Macy, glaring in her most savage manner, her angry eyes fixed on the black, curly head of the girl she despised.

There was no vacant seat near Mary. Marjorie noted all these facts in that one comprehensive glance. It also seemed to her that the French girl's face wore an expression of mocking triumph. And was it her imagination, or had Mary glanced up as she entered and then turned away her eyes? What did it all mean? Marjorie took the nearest vacant seat at hand, the prey of many emotions. Then, as Miss Nelson stepped forward to address the cla.s.s, she resolutely put away all personal matters and, with the fine attention to the business of study which had endeared her to her various teachers during her freshman year, she strove to center her troubled mind on what Miss Nelson was saying.

After a short preliminary talk on the importance of the study the cla.s.s was about to begin, Miss Nelson proceeded to the business of registering her pupils and giving out the text books. Miss Nelson laid particular stress on the thorough learning of all definitions pertaining to the study in hand. "You must know these definitions so well that you could say them backward if I requested it," she emphasized. "They will be of greatest importance in your work to come." Then she heartlessly gave out several pages of them for the advance lesson. The rest of the period she spent in going over and explaining these same definitions in her usual thorough manner, ending with the stern injunction that she expected a letter-perfect recitation on the following morning.

"Miss Nelson doesn't want much," grumbled Jerry Macy in Irma Linton's ear, as they filed out of cla.s.s at the ringing of the bell which ended the period. Then, before Irma had time to reply, she continued: "_What_ do you think of Mignon? Isn't it a shame she's back again? And did you see her march in here with Mary Raymond? It's a pretty sure thing that neither of them knows who is who in Sanford. I suppose Mary, poor innocent, asked her the way to the cla.s.sroom. Where was Marjorie all that time, I wonder? I'll bet you a box of Huyler's that they won't walk into geometry again to-morrow morning. Hurry up, there's Marjorie just ahead of us with Mary now. The fair Mignon has vanished. I can see her away ahead of them. I guess Marjorie didn't know who piloted Mary into cla.s.s. She came in last, you know."

Irma laid a detaining hand on Jerry's arm.

"Oh, wait until after school, Jerry," she counseled. This quiet, un.o.btrusive girl was a keen observer. She had noted Marjorie's half-troubled expression as she entered the room. The suspicion that Marjorie knew and was not pleased had already come to her.

"All right, I will. Wish school was out now. Those geometry definitions make me tired. I'm worn out already and school hasn't fairly begun yet.

I hate mathematics. Wouldn't look at a geometry if I could graduate without it."

But while Jerry was anathematizing mathematics, Marjorie was saying earnestly to Mary, whom she had joined at the door, "I am so sorry I didn't come back to your seat in the study hall before the first bell rang. I really ought to have asked permission to do so, but I was afraid Miss Merton would say 'no.' She never loses a chance to be horrid to me.

When you said you were going to recite in this section I hurried and changed my programme to make things come right for us."

Marjorie's earnest little speech, so full of apparent good will, brought a quick flush of contrition to Mary's cheeks. She experienced a swift spasm of regret for her bitter suspicion of Marjorie. Her tense face softened. Why not unburden herself to her chum now and find relief from her torture of doubt?

"Marjorie," she began, laying her hand lightly on her friend's arm, "I wish you would tell me something. Miss La Salle said that Constance Stevens----"

"Mary!" Marjorie's sunny face had suddenly grown very stern. "I am sorry to have to speak harshly of any girl in Sanford High, but as your chum I feel it my duty to ask you to have nothing to do with Mignon La Salle, or pay the slightest attention to her. She made us all very unhappy last year, particularly Constance and myself. I can't help saying it, but I am sorry that she has come back to Sanford. I understood that she was at boarding school. I am sure I wish she had stayed there." Marjorie spoke with a bitterness quite foreign to her generous nature.

Mary's lips tightened obstinately as she listened. Her brief impulse toward a frank understanding died with Marjorie's emphatic utterance.

She was inwardly furious at her chum's sharp interruption.

"I am very well aware that you would stand up for Miss Stevens, whether she were in the right or in the wrong," she said with cold sarcasm.

"I've been seeing that ever since I came to Sanford. But just because she is perfect in _your_ eyes is not reason why _I_ should think so. For my part, I like Miss La Salle. She was awfully sweet to me this morning, and I don't think it is nice in you to talk about her behind her back."

In the intensity of the moment both girls had stopped short in the corridor, oblivious of the pa.s.sing students. Mary's flas.h.i.+ng blue eyes fixed Marjorie's amazed brown ones in an angry gaze.

"Why, Ma-a-ry!" stammered Marjorie. "What _is_ the matter? I don't understand you." Her bewilderment served only to increase the rancor that had been smouldering in Mary's heart. Now it burst forth in a fury of words.

"Don't pretend, Marjorie Dean. You know perfectly well what I mean. It isn't necessary for me to tell you, either. When I came to Sanford to live with you I thought I'd be the happiest girl in the world because I was going to live at your house and go to school with you. If I had known as much when Father and I came to see you as I know now--well, I wouldn't--ever--have come back again!" Her anger-choked tones faltered.

She turned away her head. Then pulling herself sharply together, she turned and hurried down the corridor.

For a second Marjorie stood rooted to the spot. Could she believe her ears? Was it really Mary, her soldier chum, with whom she had stood shoulder to shoulder for so many years, who had thus arraigned her? Her instant of inaction past, she darted down the corridor after Mary. But the latter pa.s.sed into the study hall before she could overtake her. She could do nothing now to straighten the tangle in which they had so suddenly become involved until the morning session of school was over.

She glanced anxiously toward Mary's seat the moment she stepped across the threshold of the study hall, only to see her friend in earnest conversation with Mignon La Salle. An angry little furrow settled on her usually placid brow. Mignon had lost no time in living up to her reputation. Mary must be rescued from her baleful influence at once.

When they reached home that day she would tell her chum the whole story of last year. Once Mary learned Mignon's true character she would see matters in a different light. But what had the French girl said about Constance? If only she had held her peace and not interrupted Mary. Even as a little girl Marjorie remembered how hard it had been, once Mary was angry, to discover the cause. In spite of her usual good-nature she was unyieldingly stubborn. When, at rare intervals, she became displeased or hurt over a fancied grievance, she would nurse her anger for days in sulky silence.