to telephone the whole affair to his dad. Then I just lit into him, told him what a cad and a coward he is. Told him I’d start a public investigation and testify against him. Like all conceited blowbags, he collapsed when under fire; asked what I wanted him to do, begged me not to tell his father; for he’d take him out of college and put him to work in the store. Made him tell me just where and to whom he’d told that abominable lie, and told him I’d go with him while he corrected it. ‘You can call it a joke,’ I said, ‘if you must save your face.’”
Aunt Betsy laughed contemptuously.
“The boy fairly groveled, and swore he’d go; that it wouldn’t be necessary for me to accompany him. I waited while he put on his coat, and started out with him. Watched him go to two places, and on his way to the third before I left him.”
“Mrs. Carter,” began Jack, “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t try. I hate to be thanked.”
“Aunt Betsy, you’re just wonderful!” cried Patricia gleefully, while Ted shook his mother’s hand violently.
Conversation for the rest of the evening was general, concerned principally with the prospects of Granard in the morrow’s game. Patricia apparently forgot her resolution to leave right after dinner, for it was half past nine when she drove back to the dorm alone, having decidedly refused Ted’s offer to go with her.
“I’d feel lots better if you stayed home and kept guard,” she whispered to him as he protestingly let her out. “I’ll be all right.”
She did not know that Norman Young had inspected the interior of the car as it stood in the back yard; nor that, hidden behind a pillar on the porch next to the apartment house, he had watched her come out alone and start for Arnold Hall.
CHAPTER XII
ON DUTY
“Oh, come on, Pats!” urged Betty, impatiently.
“It’s heaps of fun to hear the tryouts,” added Anne; “more than seeing the plays themselves, sometimes.”
The football season was over. The Greystone game had resulted in a close victory for Granard, in a hard-fought battle. Jack had covered himself with glory and made the final score for his college in the last few minutes of play. Tut had come down with a heavy cold—so it was said—and had gone home for the Thanksgiving recess a few days early; so he was absent not only from the line-up, but also from the game. All rumors regarding Jack had died a natural death, and now were nearly forgotten; so rapidly does one event follow another, and a fresh excitement take the place of its predecessor, in college life. The present and the future are the only tenses the college student knows anything about.
Dramatics now held the center of the stage.
The Alley Gang was standing on the corner of Wentworth Street and College Avenue after leaving Horton Hall, and were discussing a coming production of the dramatic club.
“And we’ll all go to ‘Vans’ afterward and get something decent to eat,” proposed Frances enthusiastically. “That dinner we just had was fierce!”
“Dinner, did you say?” inquired Hazel scornfully.
“Why won’t you go, Pat?” asked Jane, clasping Patricia’s arm affectionately.
“Because my theme for English III is due tomorrow, and—”
“But not until afternoon,” objected Hazel. “You’ll have plenty of time to—”
“That’s just what I won’t have,” contradicted Patricia. “French test and History review both in the morning; and with Yates’ lab period early in the afternoon. I don’t know when you people do all your work, I’m sure.”
“We don’t do it,” laughed Mary, shifting rapidly from one foot to the other to keep warm; for the night was cold.
“Well, let’s go somewhere,” grumbled Lucile, sinking her head deeper into her big fur collar, “before we all freeze.”
Patricia bit her tongue to keep back an angry response to Lucile’s unpleasant tones. She and Lucile had never hit it off very well, and she had wondered more than once how the other girls managed so nonchalantly to put up with Lu’s uncertain moods. Clarice, the “black sheep,” was noisy and indiscreet, but at least she was accommodating and good-natured.
“You’ll be all alone in the alley, except for Clarice,” warned Anne. “It’s her night on the Black Book.”
“I can work in peace and quiet, then,” replied Patricia; “with all of you ‘hyenas’ out of the way.”
Dodging a threatened blow from Katharine’s sturdy arm, Patricia ran quickly down Wentworth Street, while the rest of the crowd started for the auditorium. It was hard to leave the girls and go back alone to work in the lonely dormitory; only a strong sense of obligation to her unknown benefactor saved Patricia from giving in to the pleas of her pals and let the theme slide. When she entered the hall she was surprised to find Rhoda still on duty.
“Why, where’s Clarice?” she asked.
“She hasn’t come in yet,” replied the maid, looking up from some fancy work she was doing.
“You’ll be awfully late for your dinner, Rhoda. You’d better go. I’ll stay here until Clarice comes.”
“That’s very kind of you,” responded the girl gratefully, beginning to fold up the long scarf and lay aside her silks. “The chef is always so put out when the help come in late.”
“I suppose he wants to get his work finished, and go somewhere; we all do. It is only stern necessity for work on an essay that brought me back here tonight. The others have all gone to the tryouts.”
Patricia slipped into the chair which Rhoda vacated, and watched the maid put on her hat and coat, thinking how little, after all, they really knew about her in spite of their association with her, day after day.
“Good night, and thank you,” said the girl softly, as she opened the door.
“Good night, and you’re welcome,” laughed Patricia.
A couple of minutes later, the telephone rang.
“Yes?” answered Patricia.
“Rhoda?” demanded a thin, sharp voice.
“No; she has just gone. Is there any message?”
“There is not,” was the curt response, as the woman at the other end of the line hung up noisily.
“Now where in the name of fortune have I heard that voice before?” mused Patricia aloud. “Those thin high tones sound oddly familiar. I know! It was Mrs. Brock! But why should she telephone Rhoda?”
Patricia was still puzzling over the question when the door opened to admit Clarice in a dull rose dinner gown and a black fur jacket, followed by Mrs. Vincent, closely wrapped in a long, grey coat, her face drawn with pain.
“Clarice,” the chaperon was saying, as they paused to close the door, “tell Ivan when he comes that
