The plot was thickening. Sally did not in any
way answer to the deceitful type, but some mysterious
force seemed to overshadow her.
“Pretty little thing, with such appealing eyes
and so honest—”
Jane slept.
PLEADING FOR TIME
It’s a very large order, Jane, but you’re
the merchant. How on earth do you expect to obtain
permission to stay at Lenox without giving the whole
thing away?”
“I haven’t an idea, but depend on old
friend Circumstances to bob something up. It
is wonderful how very simple it is to flim-flam a
philosopher. They never seem to suspect intrigue
and walk right into the trap. I’ve tried
it before with Rutledge! she’s a lamb if you
watch your ba-as.”
It was “the morning after” and that trite
phrase surely fitted the occasion. Jane had dragged
Dozia from her dreams in spite of threats and defiance,
and now both juniors were on their way back to the
dining hall at Madison.
“Rather different from the last tramp we took
over this prairie,” said Jane, “but as
a thriller you can’t beat midnight moonlight.”
“Not that I’d care to,” Dozia answered
witheringly. “I can’t see that the
adventure ‘got us anywhere’ as brother
Tom would say. I haven’t any brother, you
know, Jane dear, but it always sounds better to blame
one’s slang on him, don’t you think?”
“I’m positive,” said Jane, “but
I have a trick of blaming mine on Judy. Wonder
will she sleep all day because I, the faithful alarm
clock, did not go off at her ear. There’s
the bell! I’m not very hungry. As
an appetiser I think a night such as the last rather
a flivver.”
“Isn’t it? I have that widely advertised
gone feeling myself. Here’s a chance to
duck in without being noticed.”
“We were out for early exercise,” prompted
Jane significantly, “and don’t be too
intelligent about that fire when they ask.”
“‘Deef’ and dumb,” quibbled
Dozia. “Thank you for the party, Jane.
I had a lov-el-ly time.”
“Don’t mention it,” whispered Jane,
as the line of students swallowed the two adventurers.
But the day was “fraught with questions,”
as Judith Stearns put it, deploring her own inability
to obtain any “intelligent account of the whole
performance.” It became known early that
the two juniors who had been searched for during the
night, were not others than Jane and Dozia, but even
a veritable grilling at the hands of a picked corps
of sophs brought nothing more definite from the wayfarers
than “they were over visiting Lenox and the ‘fire’
was a false alarm.”
“And of course we couldn’t put our heads
out, for fear of panic,” grumbled Nettie Brocton.
The day passed somehow, and it was conspicuous by
an entire absence of freshmen from the usual intermingling
between periods. Even to Jane the reason for
this was not clear until, in a burst of confidence
with Judith, she outlined her plan of staying over
at Lenox “until the ghost business was disposed
of.”
