Marjorie Dean, High School Junior. Chase Josephine
delicious cheer.
“You girls go. I can’t. I’ve an errand to do.” Marjorie’s color rose as she spoke.
“Do your errand some other time,” coaxed Susan. “I may not have any money to spend to-morrow.”
“I’ll treat to-morrow,” Marjorie assured her. “I can’t possibly put off my errand. You can imagine I’m with you. Always cultivate your imagination.”
Four voices rose to protest her decision, but she remained firm. “To-morrow,” she compromised. “Please don’t tease me. I can’t really go with you to-day.”
“We’ll try to get along without you, just this once,” agreed tactful Constance. Something in Marjorie’s manner told her that her friend wished to go on her way alone.
“Go ahead then, Marjorie. Do your errand, faithful child,” consented Jerry, who had also scented the unusual and shrewdly speculated as to whether it had anything to do with their conversation of the morning.
Anxious, yet regretful, to be free of her chums, Marjorie said good-bye and hurried off in an opposite direction. Jerry had said that the Farnhams lived in the beautiful residence that adjoined Mignon La Salle’s home. It was not a long walk, yet how Marjorie dreaded it. Given that Rowena were at home, Mignon would, perhaps, be with her. That would make matters doubly hard. Yet she could do no less than carry out the interview she felt must take place at the earliest possible moment.
It was a very grave little girl who opened the ornamental iron gate and proceeded reluctantly up the long driveway to the huge brown stone house, set in the midst of a wide expanse of tree-dotted lawn. For all the residence was a magnificent affair, Marjorie shivered as she mounted the massive stone steps. There was little of the atmosphere of home about it.
“Is Miss Rowena Farnham here?” was her low-voiced question of the white-capped maid who answered the door.
“She hasn’t come home from school yet, miss,” informed the maid. “Will you step into the house and wait for her?”
“Yes, thank you.” Marjorie followed the woman into a high-ceilinged, beautifully appointed, square hall and across it to a mammoth drawing-room, very handsomely furnished, but cheerless, nevertheless. She felt very small and insignificant as she settled herself lightly on an ornate gilt chair, to await the arrival of Rowena.
Her vigil was destined to be tedious, unbroken by the sight of anyone save the maid, who passed through the hall once or twice on her way to answer the bell. Even she did not trouble herself to glance through the half-parted brocade portieres at the lonely little figure in the room beyond. Consulting her wrist watch, Marjorie read five o’clock. She had been waiting for over an hour. She guessed that the girl on whom she had come to call must be with Mignon La Salle. There was at least a grain of comfort for her in this conjecture. If Mignon were at home now, there was small chance that she would be present at the interview.
An impatient hand on the bell sent a shrill, reverberating peal through the great house. An instant and she heard the maid’s voice, carefully lowered. There came the sound of quick, questioning tones, which she recognized. Rowena had at last put in an appearance. Immediately there followed a flinging back of the concealing portieres and the girl who had sprung into Marjorie’s knowledge so unbecomingly that morning walked into the room.
“You wished to see – Oh, it’s you!” The tall girl’s black eyes swept her uninvited guest with an expression far from cordial.
“Yes, it is I,” Marjorie’s inflection was faintly satirical. “I made a mistake about you this morning. I thought you were Miss Archer’s new secretary.” She lost no time in going directly to the point.
For answer Rowena threw back her auburn head and laughed loudly. “I fooled you nicely, didn’t I?” According to outward signs her conscience was apparently untroubled.
“Yes,” returned Marjorie quietly. “Why did you do it?”
Rowena’s laughing lips instantly took on a belligerent curve. The very evenness of the inquiry warned her that trouble was brewing for her. “See here,” she began rudely, “what did you come to my house for? I’m not pleased to see you. Judging from several things I’ve heard, I don’t care to know you.”
Marjorie paled at the rebuff. She had half expected it, yet now that it had come she did not relish it. At first meeting she had been irritated by the other girl’s almost rude indifference. Now she had dropped all semblance of courtesy.
“I hardly think it matters about your knowing or not knowing me,” she retorted in the same carefully schooled tone. “You, of course, are the one to decide that. What does matter is this – I must ask you to tell me exactly why you wished me to work out that quadratic problem for you. It is quite necessary that I should know.”
“Why is it so necessary?”
“Because I must believe one of two things,” was Marjorie’s grave response. “I must have the truth. I won’t be kept in the dark about it. Either you only pretended to play secretary as a rather peculiar joke, or else you did it purposely because – ” She hesitated, half ashamed to accuse the other of dishonesty.
“What will you do if I say I did it on purpose?” tantalized Rowena. “Go to your Miss Archer, I suppose, with a great tale about me. I understand that is one of your little pastimes. Now listen to me, and remember what I say. You think I was prying into those examination papers, don’t you?”
“I’d rather not think so.” Marjorie raised an honest, appealing glance to meet the mocking gleam of Rowena’s black eyes.
“Who cares what you think? You are a goody-goody, and I never saw one yet that I’d walk across the street with. Whatever I want, I always get. Remember that, too. If your dear Miss Archer hadn’t been called to another part of the building, I might never have had a chance to read over those examinations. She went away in a hurry and left me sitting in the office. Naturally, as her desk was open, I took a look to see what there was to see. I wasn’t afraid of any subject but algebra. I’m n. g. in that. So I was pretty lucky to get a chance to read over the examination. I knew right away by the questions that it was the one I’d have to try.
“My father promised me a pearl necklace if I’d pass all my tests for the sophomore class. Of course I wanted to win it. That quadratic problem counted thirty credits. It meant that without it I’d stand no chance to pass algebra. I couldn’t do it, and I was in despair when you came into the office. If you hadn’t been so stupid as to take me for Miss Archer’s secretary and hadn’t said you were a junior, I’d have let you alone. That secretary idea wasn’t bad, though. It sent those other girls about their business. I thought you could do that problem if I couldn’t. It’s a good thing you did. I copied it in examination this afternoon and I know it’s right,” she ended triumphantly.
Sheer amazement of the girl’s bold confession rendered Marjorie silent. Never in all her life had she met a girl like Rowena Farnham. Her calm admittance to what Marjorie had suspected was unbelievable. And she appeared to feel no shame for her dishonesty. She gloried in it. Finding her voice at last, the astounded and dismayed interviewer said with brave firmness: “I can’t look at this so lightly, Miss Farnham. It wasn’t fair in you to deceive me into doing a thing like that.”
“What’s done can’t be undone,” quoted Rowena, seemingly undisturbed by the reproof. “You are as deep in the mud as I am in the mire. You helped me, you know.”
“I will not be included in such dishonesty.” Marjorie sprang angrily to her feet and faced Rowena. “If Miss Archer knew this she would not accept your algebra paper. She might not wish to accept you as a pupil, either. I hoped when I came here this afternoon that everything would turn out all right, after all. I hoped that paper might not be the algebra test you were to have. I don’t wish to tell Miss Archer, yet it’s not fair to either of us that you should masquerade under false colors. You have put me in a very hard position.”
It was now Rowena who grew angry. During the interview she had remained standing, looking down on the girl in the chair with amused contempt. Marjorie’s