Now that Barbara had achieved popularity and leadership, she was always in demand. Her studies suffered. She and "Tiny" and "Fuzz" Herron were constantly visiting one another or being visited; she found many important things to do that had no relation to her college work; in fact, she became too thoroughly unsettled and restless to do college work.
One evening, when, with a mathematics "quiz" in prospect, she had gone to her room, conscientiously determined to study, Tiny came to urge her and Doris to climb up Prospect Hill with her, and see the moon rise. Barbara at once decided that this was a sight that she must not miss.
"You'll come, Doris?"
But Doris shook her head. "Oh, I can't. My math isn't half done."
"Don't let your studies interfere with your education," quoted "Tiny-for-Short," gravely.
"You haven't done any math, Bab," Doris pleaded. "And what about those French verbs?"
"I'll get up early tomorrow morning. Truly. I'll borrow an alarm clock, and get up."
And with this promise she departed, arm in arm with Tiny.
"Your little roommate's a good one, Bab," Tiny said, when they were outside.
"Yes," Barbara answered. "Too good."
"Hope she knows her math to-morrow."
"She will. She always does."
"We shan't."
"Oh, I don't know. I'm going to get up early."
Tiny began to hum a tune deep down in her throat. She hummed it through once, and began again before Barbara spoke.
"Tiny-for-Short, it's a horrid thing to say, but I think I'm beginning to hate her!"
"Who?"
"My roommate."
"Because she always knows her lessons?"
"Partly that. If she'd cut loose just once, I could stand it better. The funny thing is that before we came here she told me maybe I'd hate her. She's a nice little thing, too."
"How did you come by the like of her for a roommate?"
"An aunt of mine wanted us to room together. Aunt Annabel was a dear, but she made a mistake that time. We're hopeless misfits, Doris and I."
"That's easily mended next year. Do you think you and I could hit it off together?"
"Room together?" Barbara's voice was excited. "I'd love to!"
"Done, then," said Tiny-for-Short. "Look! The moon's beat us up the hill. Let's stop and dance round the tree before we go up."
"Blessed old tree!" said Barbara.
Inwardly she was repenting her impetuous confession to Tiny. "Maybe it wasn't quite nice to say that about Doris. Aunt Annabel liked her. And she is sweet. Only there are so many girls here that I'm crazy about. But I'll never let her know I'm not crazy about her, too. Next year's coming. Tiny and I - O joy!"
Doris, although she saw less and less of Barbara, made new friends. Chief among them was the attractive Frances Harrison, who came frequently to see her quiet little classmate, and who rejoiced at finally getting a room in Rocky, not far from Mead, where Doris lived.
"Drop over this afternoon and see my new quarters," Frances urged. "Or, better, why don't you come up now and help me move?"
"I'd love to come, but I can't," said Doris. "I must find Bab, and tell her that basketball practice is at nine-thirty, instead of ten."
"Where is she?"
"She started for the village post office just after breakfast," Doris replied. "Said she was coming right back."
"Then she may be anywhere now."
Doris nodded.
"Tiny-for-Short's room?"
"I don't think so. Fuzz and Migs have been here, looking for her."
"Haven't you any clue at all?"
"No."
"Then leave a note for her on her desk, and call it done. That's as much as she'd do for you."
"But she might not find it in time."
"It's as likely as that you will find her in time. What's the use looking for a needle in a haystack?"
"I think I'll have to try. They asked me to. I'll come up as soon as I can."
"You little steady! I'd like you for a champion. I'll take myself off now. If I meet her, I'll send her down on the double-quick."
Barbara was not anywhere in Mead. She was not in any of the other dormitories that Doris scurried through. Doris ran back to her room, to see if by any chance Barbara had returned in her absence. The room was deserted, and the clock said twenty-six minutes past nine. She snatched up her sweater, and was hurrying toward the door when Barbara entered.
"Basketball practice -" began Doris.
"I know. I just met Ethel. Doris, would you be willing to run in and tell Migs to make it the ten-thirty car? I told her I couldn't possibly get ready before eleven, but now - She'll know what it means."
When Doris came back from this errand the room again looked empty, but a voice emerged from the closet.
"That you, Doris?" it said. "Thank you. Now I'll explain. Half an hour ago Migs had a telegram from her Uncle George to bring another girl and meet him in Waitfield. She didn't know he was east of Nevada, and he gives you the best time, she says."
"What fun!" cried Doris. "So she asked you."
"Yes, wasn't it darling of her? Migs is a dear kid. You're working, aren't you?"
"I had been - a little."
"Going to keep it up for the next hour?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"Well, if you could hook me into my dress after basketball practice. I can do it myself, but it takes so much longer, and I'll ahve to scramble, anyway, to make that car."
"Oh, yes, indeed, I'll help you dress, Bab," Doris said. "Glad to."
"You're a brick! What would I do without a roommate! Oh, have you heard that Frances Harrison's coming down to Rocky to live?"
"Yes, isn't it nice?"
"Fine! Who told you? Dear! Where's that other gym shoe?"
"There's one under the couch."
"Now how in the world did it get there?"
A dash from the closet; a retreat to the door, where hung the mirror; a hurried dragging of a comb through thick locks; a twinkling of braided fingers - all accompanied by rapid speech.
"Don't touch a thing while I'm gone, Dorry. Promise! You know it's my turn twice over to clean up. I meant to have been back long ago, and had it all done by now, but I'll give the place a lick when we get home from Waitfield. There! Hope my hair stays put this time. Chuck my clothes behind the screen if you don't like to see 'em. Here, I'll do it." She snatched shirt waist and skirt from the chair. "Good-by!"
Doris straightened the screen, which under Barbara's vigorous hand had reeled against the morris chair, and picking up the waist and skirt behind it, hung them away in Barbara's closet. From her own closet she produces a dust mop, and set to work.
In the midst of her proceedings the freshmen two doors down the hall arrived from the post office, laden with mail for the corridor. They handed in a home letter for Doris and a pile of missives for Barbara.
"Leighton always makes a scoop," said the freshmen. "We're going to buy a cart to carry her mail, if she doesn't reform."
Doris was still at work when "Wally" dropped in to see her. "Where's Bab?" she asked.
"Playing basketball."
"I suppose you know you clean this place altogether too often? It's not your turn, D. D."
Doris blushed as if caught in a fault. "Bab will do it next week."
"She's been doing it next week for three weeks already."
"It's my own fault to-day," Doris said. "She told me to leave it until she came back from Waitfield, but she will be tired then, and so I -"
"Bab's a shirk."
"That's not fair, Wally," Doris protested. "You know she would do it if I didn't."
"Let her, then, tired or not tired. It will do her good."
"I hate to see dust about."
"Shut your eyes. Or come over to my room, where it won't be on your conscience."
Doris was silent.
"You're a mush of concession where Bab is."
"She can't help it that she hasn't more time," Doris pleaded.
"She has just as much time as the rest of us. You're spoiling her, D. D."
"You don't understand, Wally. It's easier doing things yourself than seeing them go undone."
"Anyway, you can't get her lessons for her."
"No," said Doris, sadly, "I can't do that."
She stood looking out of the window, with a little droop at the corners of her mouth.
"Does she ever study?"
"Not often. It - it scares me. She's always going to. And she is so clever when she does."
Wally acknowledged that Barbara was no dunce.
"It's just that somebody wants her all the time," Doris explained. "Ever since we chose our tree, girls have fairly poured into this room - upper-class girls, too. You've no idea how many come, and who."
"I've seen them, D. D."
"And she can't bear to say no when they want her to do things. I tried to talk to her a little the other night. She says that their wanting her is like opening a lot of doors, and she has to go in and see what they're all like. She can't stay out. That's what college is for, she says."
"What about the curriculum?"
"It's useful, too. You oughtn't to neglect it. But the people - the girls - they're the wonderful thing about college. She's partly right, Wally."
"You can't go in at every door that's open," Wally objected. "You must choose."
"Bab doesn't. Of course she has her special friends, but she knows everybody, girls I never heard of. She says somebody told her to drag a wide net, and she's doing it. She never dreamed that any mortal girl could have such a good time as she is having. It seems as if she never really knew girls before. And she wonders whether she will be so crazy about them all through her four years as she is now. She thinks she'll major in friendship - double major in it."
"She's crazy," said Wally. "Crazy on girls. Carried clean off her feet."
"Those first weeks she studied, but now - It sends the shivers down my back to hear her say unprepared in trig. She said it twice last week."
"She'll get brought up short one of these days. The faculty here don't mean to play second fiddle to anybody."
"But the faculty like her, Wally."
"Like her? Like Bab? Who doesn't? I like her, except when she unloads her work on you. Then I could trounce her."
Doris's face quivered. She was not listening. "You - you don't think anything could really happen!"
"Everything can happen when a person doesn't mind her p's and q's. They say a freshman never knows that she is really here until after the first semester. Before that she's dreaming. And sometimes she wakes up with the nightmare. The faculty cling to an old-fashioned notion that college is a place for study, and there's no denying that they have the upper hand of us."
"But Bab!"
"She isn't worth breaking your heart over, D. D."
"She is!" Doris cried. "She's worth doing anything - anything - for!"
Wally laid a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Cheer up," she said. "Bab's not the sort to flunk out. Get her fighting blood roused. That's all she needs to win."
"Yes. But meanwhile - she doesn't see that there is anything to fight."
After Wally had gone, Doris stood at the window. Suddenly she saw a figure in a rain coat run from the arched entrance to the gymnasium, and dart toward Mead Doris watched it with frank gladness. There was an inner chamber in her heart that she had long kept swept and garnished for the girl who one day should come to claim it. More than once throughout these autumn weeks a voice, a face, had challenged entrance, and she had almost been persuaded that in Frances the girl had come. Now Wally's quick speech had drawn aside the curtains, and Doris had found Barbara there. Barbara had stolen into her heart of hearts while Doris was unaware.
"She doesn't care for me," said Doris, bravely, "but I love her. I love her a lot."
"Sinner!" Barbara cried, flying in at the door. "How often must I tell you not to clean up this place the minute my back is turned? I shall have to hide that mop."
Doris smiled whimsically. Then as the helpful roommate, the adroit pinner, the nimble-fingered hooker-up, she reigned supreme. Soon she made Barbara ready.
"There's a lot of mail for you on the desk."
"I'll take it along to read on the car." Barbara swept the pile of letters into her black hand bag. "You're a brick, Doris. I'll do as much for you some day. Good-by."
Among the notes that Barbara opened on the car was a communication from the registrar. That official wished to see Miss Leighton during office hours the following forenoon.
Barbara read the typewritten words as she would have taken a blow in the face, calmly. It was only afterward that she felt the tingle. Then she wondered through which of her studies this had come upon her, or if it might be for any other reason that the registrar desired her company. Recollection of warnings from more than one instructor contrived to rob the alternative of any robust hope. Still later, she remembered that Aunt Annabel had been a great friend of the lady's. That memory, however, gave her little comfort. Although she pretended that she was not at all frightened, she spent the entire evening in demonstrating uninteresting facts about the frustums of cones, and in vainly wishing that she had a clearer noting of such references as §610 and §260.
The next morning, on her way to the registrar's office, Barbara passed a long line of girls that had formed in the lower corridor of the administration hall to get tickets for the college play to be given in the gymnasium. Tiny was in the line, prepared with four sandwiches and a doughnut to hold her place, if necessary, all day.
How she conducted herself in the interview with the registrar Barbara never knew exactly. Her feet appeared to behave creditably, supported by her hands and her tongue, but in this they were all acting without orders.
Her tongue began practicing a kind of duet with the registrar entirely at that lady's volition. The registrar's voice went on and on, and the girl's voice came in at the right times with the right responses to the kindly appealing words. The registrar and Barbara were troubled about Barbara. Barbara had had a good preparation; she had ability; she had qualities that count for much in college. But she was not giving herself a chance. She was letting the fun of college take the work by the throat and throttle it. The registrar and Barbara thought it was a pity. They almost shed tears over it, although no one could imagine the registrar's really doing anything so undignified, and Barbara's tears merely burned behind her eyes, and made them very bright.
Their unanimity of thought was wonderful. They agreed that Barbara had shamefully misused her brains - it never occurred to either of them to doubt that she had brains. They agreed even more fully that in college a girl really ought to give her studies as well as her friends a fair chance to educate her. Otherwise she would become lopsided. And they were of one mind that Barbara would of course mend her ways. It would be a mistake for the college to lose her. They both felt that strongly. And they saw clearly that it would have to lose her; it could not be otherwise if she persisted in neglecting the curriculum. But as she was not going to do that, as she was going to show herself not a child, but a woman, one capable of exercising her will, and denying herself to distractions, even to friends, when friends interfered with duty - in short, as she was going to apply herself to what the college considered the real object of her sojourn on the campus, both the registrar and Barbara knew that the mistake would not occur. A word to a person whose aunt had been Barbara's aunt was sufficient.
They shook hands on it, and Barbara felt deeply moved. She went out, ashamed and determined and happy and hopeful, all at once. She sped downstairs, nodded reassuringly to Migs, relieved Tiny-for-Short in the line, and sat for an hour with a book open before her, and a maelstrom of ideas whirling in her head. What a noble woman the registrar was! How wonderfully she had talked! How studious she herself was going to be, beginning this very hour with this very "math" lesson! But oh, she did wish she knew a little more of what her class had done since the middle of October! Never mind, a stout will could work miracles - had not the registrar said so? She would justify that grand woman's belief in her, and confound those who doubted her strength of character. "Miss Leighton lacks only the will to work," the registrar had reported one of her instructors as saying. That lady must learn that Bab Leighton lacked nothing, nothing that a normal girl ought to have.
Meanwhile how hungry she was! And what interesting thing was Sally King talking about just beyond?
In due time the business manager of "Topsy-Turvy" and her assistant appeared with the chart of the gymnasium, and opened the door of the box office, ordinarily the senior cloak room. The long line of ticket buyers now wound about the farther basement. Barbara and Migs, being well to the front, carried off the desired seats at the left end of the gallery, overlooking the stage.
Complacently Barbara departed; the fire of purpose warmed her heart, and drove away the sinister breath of warning that had, after all, lurked behind that interview in the office.