Jane Allen: Center Part 30

"Oh! Oh! ho! ho!

Rah! Rah! Rah Wellington!

Center! Center! Rah! Rah! Rah!"

The cyclone broke. That strategy on Jane's part won a victory for which she would have been more content to have had any other of the team, than herself, strike the decisive blow.

"You did it. We knew you would. Good old Jane."

"Can't lose her!"

"Brains tell!"

Came the almost indistinguishable tumult of sound.

"Sheer luck," Jane insisted.

"Luck!" mocked Judith. "Even luck knows where to light. Jane, if we lost I should have drowned myself. I have bet away a whole week's stamps and fudge, and goodness knows what all. But we won, and I may open up shop again. Just look over there at Marian. Have her friends all deserted her?"

"Oh, call her in," suggested Jane. "It's a shame, here in a strange school."

"Not little Judy," replied the other. "I may take a chance on betting fudge against Breslins, but I would not be so rash as to take a chance on anything like that. Oh, there she goes with our reporter! What if she gives any news of the Barn Swifts?"

"Oh, she wouldn't!" but Jane's voice sounded apprehensive.

"Well, if she does, we will simply-that is, we certainly will,"

stuttered Judith, too overcome to talk coherently. She was waving her arms and indicating dire calamity on Marian's unfortunate head.

"Still, Judy, we should have kept track of that nice little reporter.

It would be perfectly awful if Marian gave her any news about Helen's hidden talent."

"Oh, Jane, I am absolutely sure she will do just that. I never before saw her so abject to a mere business woman. By the way, dear, where is Helen?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you? Mrs. Weatherbee asked me if we would not all agree to leave the child pretty much alone for a few days. She thought it would be so much better for her nerves, not to be talked to. I agreed with her, as I have found Helen absolutely impossible lately.

She will not come out, and she just sits and hugs her letters."

"Does she ever show you any of her letters, Jane?"

"No," faltering. "But why should she?"

"Why should she not? Now, there, I didn't mean a thing, but we have not yet heard the story of that magic card, you know. What was on that card, Jane?"

"Judy, you little nuisance," and Jane smiled in mockery. "As if I could tell you anything about that now! Run along, and tell the girls to spread the news about our big dance next Wednesday evening. Remember, it is given in honor of the Breslins."

CHAPTER XXVI-ANGELS UNAWARES

The big dance was over. Wellington had entertained the Breslins royally, and not even the absence of "real men" effected a barrier between the romping college girls and the best of good times. In fact, as the girls were wont to declare, it was a lot more fun without boys at college. Of course boys have their place, and that specifically at dances, but those who have ever enjoyed the privilege of partic.i.p.ating in a girls' dance at a big college, testify to the genuineness of the mirth, the joyousness of such an entertainment.

Basketball games were now being run off from a schedule that filled in every date from the height of the season to the Christmas vacation.

As Jane and Judith had predicted early in the term, sports had reached the acme of popularity at Wellington, and so well was the spirit and team work developed, that the usual small talk, and smaller squabbles were almost entirely obliterated, from the school curriculum-that furnished by the students, and not announced in the official prospectus.

Marian Seaton and Dolorez Vincez still "teamed up" and were under the ever watchful eye of the faculty, but the authoritative bomb had not yet actually exploded, and both girls appeared to hold their places in spite of Mrs. Weatherbee's threat, concerning the proposed beauty parlor offence. But Dolorez played no more basketball.

Nor had the beauty shop enterprise been abandoned, though just who was actually responsible for the little cottage now undergoing repair, with the evident intent of opening up, no one was prepared to announce.

Jane, true to her promise, had quickly spread the word of disapproval among the student body, and in this she was ably supported and promptly a.s.sisted by Judith. It took little effort to convince the girls that Wellington would not permit her pupils to be canva.s.sed in any business interest, and possibly, the character of the enterprise, being so closely allied to rampant vanity, had something to do with the quick reaction to their own disapproval.

With interest almost mounting to anxiety Jane watched for the local paper, the _Bugle_, published at the end of each month. She had reason to fear it would contain some material not given officially by the press committee of the college. The intimacy of Marian Seaton with the reporter was interpreted by both Judith and Jane as presaging trouble in print, and in the time elapsing, that fear of some disclosure concerning Helen grew in intensity with Jane, and was shared by the reliable and ever considerate Judith.

One morning early in December Jane received a little note from Helen, who, according to Mrs. Weatherbee's arrangements, was doing her work quietly, and without the possibility of companions well meant though perhaps unthinking.

Helen took her exercise with the others, ate her meals in the refectory, went to a few lectures, but outside of that she was leading such a school life as an artist or a very serious student might be expected to adhere to. All her rollicking good humored individuality was suddenly swallowed up in what appeared to her companions as concentration, but Jane and Judith surmised it was a.s.sociated with a more serious and less ordinary condition of affairs.

With uncertain fingers Jane tore open the little note inscribed in the peculiarly foreign vertical penmans.h.i.+p. She feared it might be a good bye, or at least the forerunner of a farewell, as Helen for two months past seemed to be at Wellington only from moment to moment, ready to leave at a word-the word Jane had so well forestalled up to the present. The missive, however, was not an adieu. It ran as follows:

"My dearest friend:

"You have been very patient with Helen. Each day I have longed for the pleasure of throwing open to you my anguished heart, but every day comes, and is closed by a night as dark as that before, and still I must wait-wait!

"The little card tied to my flowers I send with this. The name on it is almost sacred to me, and the sight of that name gave me the shock you witnessed. I felt he must be near, and that soon I would see him, but now I know it was all a cruel hoax, and I the victim of that hateful girl, who has so much wronged me, here at this beautiful school!

"I must tell you, my friend, that I did not know that other woman (she is more than girl), the black-eyed, black-haired foreigner.

But now I know her. She was at Blindwood, and there with her then yellow hair, she taught in the gym. So it was she who perpetrated this outrage-she who thought it smart to see me almost faint with hope from the word written on my flower card.

"But have patience, my friend, and all will still be well, with your grateful and affectionate

"Helen."

The fateful card fell into Jane's lap. On it was written the words:

"To beloved Helka from Stanislaus."

She turned over and over the innocent bit of pasteboard. And that was all-just those two names. What did it mean? Who was Stanislaus?

Pondering still on the new mystery Jane recalled that a boy had been mentioned in connection with the mysterious fainting spell Helen suffered, just before leaving Miss Jordan's apartment in New York. Jane herself had seen someone in the lower hall, as she went out that day with Judith, and in innocent prattle, one of the freshmen had charged Jane with having a boy caller while in New York. Now, all this was recalled by the sinister act of Marian Seaton and Dolorez Vincez, who maliciously put those two names together on that fatal card presented to Helen after her triumph.

The card and Helen's letter still lay in Jane's lap when a tap with its three trills, Judith's code, touched the door. Not waiting for a response Judith was in the room, almost before Jane had a chance to put the mystery safely under cover.

"Jane, Redhead, Bricktop, and Carroty, et al," cried Judith. "Stop, Look and Listen! We are going to have a big public concert and we are going to have it in Martineau Hall. Now, who says Wellington is out of date, and a back number?"

"Whoever has dared to say such a thing?" recharged Jane. "I am sure I have never heard of any such accusation. But why the excitement? What is the answer?"

"Don't you know? It's to be a big public benefit. And we are to sell tickets by mail, to all the home folks, and I can send a whole strip to my cowboy, one Fedario--"

"Oh, do be sensible, Judy. I can't see any good reason for being crazy over a mere concert."