While you are waiting for the sick to get well you can put in some more practice." With this injunction she left them.

Once out of the gymnasium, her smile vanished. The anxious soph.o.m.ore was Rowena Farnham. Ellen cherished small liking for this arrogant, self-centered young person whose request had been more in the nature of a command. Personally, she had not favored putting off the game. Had illness befallen a member or members of any team on which she had formerly played, no such favor would have been asked. Nothing short of incapacitation of the whole squad would have brought forth a stay in activities. Yet as manager she was obliged to be strictly impersonal.

True, she might have exercised her authority and herself made the decision. But she had deemed the other way wisest.

On entering the senior locker room she was still more annoyed to find Mignon La Salle with Rowena. If Ellen disliked the latter, she had less love for the tricky French girl. "Birds of a feather," she mentally styled them as she coldly bowed to Mignon. Her chilly recognition was not returned. Mignon had not forgiven her for the try-out.

"Well, what's the verdict?" inquired Rowena, satirically pleasant. Her manner toward dignified Ellen verged on insolence.

"The junior team are willing to postpone the game," informed Ellen briefly. She intended the interview to be a short one.

"They know on which side their bread is b.u.t.tered," laughed the other girl. "I suppose they weren't specially delighted. Did they make much fuss before they gave in?"

"As I have delivered my message, I will say 'good afternoon,'" Ellen returned stiffly.

"Don't be in too much of a hurry," drawled Rowena. "When I ask a question, I expect an answer."

"Good afternoon." Ellen wheeled and walked calmly from the locker room.

Rowena's expectations were a matter of indifference to the disgusted manager. She, at least, was not to be bullied.

Mignon La Salle laughed unpleasantly. "You were foolish to waste your breath on her." She wagged her black head in the direction of the door, which had just closed behind Ellen. "You didn't impress her _that_ much." She snapped her fingers significantly.

Smarting under the dignified snubbing Ellen had administered, Rowena hailed Mignon as an escape valve. "You keep your remarks to yourself,"

she bl.u.s.tered. "How dare you stand there laughing and snapping your fingers? No wonder people say you're two-faced and tricky. You're so deceitful you don't know your own mind. One minute you come whining to me about this Seymour snip, the next you take sides with her."

"I wasn't standing up for her and you know it," muttered Mignon. As always, Rowena's brutally expressed opinion of herself had a vastly chastening effect on the designing French girl. Rowena never minced matters. She delivered her remarks straight from the shoulder, indifferent to whether they pleased or displeased. Mignon's disregard for sincerity and honor suited her admirably. She was equally devoid of these virtues. Mignon made an excellent confederate. Still, she had to be kept in her place. Her very love of subtle intrigue made plain speaking abhorrent to her. On occasions when Rowena mercilessly held before her the mirror of truth, she invariably retired in confusion. At the same time she entertained a wholesome respect for the one who thus dared to do it. This explained to a great extent the strong influence which Rowena exerted over her. She was not happy in this new friendship.

More than once she had meditated ending it. Fear of the other's furious retaliation was a signal preventative. Rowena, as a friend, was greatly to be preferred to Rowena as an enemy.

As she sulkily viewed the t.i.tian-haired tyrant, who knew her too well for her own peace of mind, she wondered why she had not flung back taunt for taunt. Perhaps Rowena made a shrewd guess regarding her thoughts.

Adopting a milder tone she said brusquely: "Oh, quit pouting and come along. None of these stupid girls are worth quarreling over. I suppose that Marjorie Dean, the big baby, told Miss Seymour something hateful about me. That's the reason she acted so frosty."

At the mere mention of Marjorie's name Mignon's elfish face grew dark.

She and Rowena had at least one bond in common, they both despised Marjorie Dean. Mignon reflected that no scheme she had devised for humbling the former had ever borne lasting fruit. Rowena might succeed where she had failed. Rowena had sworn reprisal for the affair of the algebra problem. Undoubtedly, she would seize upon the first opportunity for retaliation. With such a glorious prospect ahead of her, Mignon craftily decided to stick to Rowena and share in her triumph.

CHAPTER XVI-A TINY CLUE

The end of the week following Thanksgiving brought the two temporarily disabled soph.o.m.ore basket ball players back to school. The day after their return a notice appeared on the bulletin board stating that the junior-soph.o.m.ore game would be played on the next Sat.u.r.day afternoon.

From all sides it received profound approbation and the recent postponement of the contest served to give it greater importance. The soph.o.m.ore team had been highly delighted with the respite, and gratefully accorded the credit to Rowena Farnham, who reveled in her sudden advance in popularity.

The juniors had little to say to the world at large. Among themselves they said a great deal. One and all they agreed that the victory of the coming game must be theirs. They yearned to show the public that in postponing the game they had merely postponed the glory of winning it.

Though they knew the strength of the opposing team, they confidently believed themselves to be even stronger. How it happened, none of them were quite able to explain, but when the fateful hour of conflict arrived the victor's crown was wrested from them. A score of 18-16 in favor of the soph.o.m.ores sent them off the field of defeat, crestfallen but remarkably good-natured, considering the circ.u.mstances.

Behind the closed door of their dressing-room, with the jubilant shouts of the soph.o.m.ores still ringing in their ears, they proceeded to take stock of themselves and their triumphant opponents.

"There is no use in talking, that Rowena Farnham is a wonderful player,"

was Muriel Harding's rueful admission. "She could almost have won the game playing alone against us."

"She's a very rough player," cried Daisy Griggs. "She tears about the floor like a wild Indian. She gave me two or three awful b.u.mps."

"Still, you can't say she did anything that one could make a fuss about," said Rita Talbot slowly. "I guess she's too clever for that."

"That's just it," chimed in Susan Atwell crossly. "She's as sharp as a needle. She goes just far enough to get what she wants without getting into trouble by it. Anyway, they didn't win much of a victory. If that last throw of Marjorie's hadn't missed the basket we'd have tied the score. It's a pity the game ended right there. Three or four minutes more were all we needed."

"I was sure I'd make it," declared Marjorie rather mournfully, "but a little before, in that big rush, I was shoved forward by someone and nearly fell. I made a slide but didn't quite touch the floor. All my weight was on my right arm and I felt it afterward when I threw the ball."

"Who shoved you forward? That's what I'd like to know," came suspiciously from Susan. "If--"

"Oh, it wasn't anyone's fault," Marjorie hastened to a.s.sure her. "It was just one of those provoking things that have to happen."

"Listen to those shrieks of joy," grumbled Muriel, as a fresh clamor began out in the gymnasium. "Oh, why didn't we beat them?"

"Never mind," consoled Marjorie. "There'd be just as much noise if we had won. You can't blame them. Next time it will be our turn. We've still three more chances. Now that we've played the sophs once, we'll know better what to do when we play them again. We really ought to go out there and congratulate them. Then they would know that we weren't jealous of them."

"I'd just as soon congratulate a big, striped tiger as that Rowena Farnham. She makes me think of one. She has that cruel, tigerish way about her. Ugh! I can't endure that girl." Muriel Harding made a gesture of abhorrence.

"Come in," called Marjorie as four loud knocks beat upon the door. "It's Jerry, Connie and Irma," she explained, as the door opened to admit the trio.

"Better luck next time," cheerfully saluted Jerry Macy. "You girls played a bang-up, I mean, a splendid game. I was sure you'd tie that score. You had a slight accident, didn't you, Marjorie?"

"Yes. Did you notice it?" Marjorie glanced curiously at Jerry's imperturbable face.

"I always notice everything," retorted Jerry. "I hope--"

Marjorie flashed her a warning look. "It wasn't anything that could be avoided," she answered with a finality that Jerry understood, if no one else did. "I move that we go down to Sargent's and celebrate our defeat," she quickly added. "Have a seat, girls. It won't take us long to get into our everyday clothes."

"Such a shame," bewailed Daisy Griggs. "After we've gone to the trouble of having these stunning suits made, then we have to be robbed of a chance to parade around the gym as winners. Anyway, they're a whole lot prettier than the sophs' suits. I didn't like that dark green and blue they had as well as ours."

"They stuck to the soph.o.m.ore colors, though," reminded Rita. "It's a wonder that Rowena Farnham didn't appear in some wonderful creation that had nothing to do with cla.s.s colors. It would be just like her."

Despite their regret over losing the game, the defeated team, accompanied by Jerry, Constance, Irma and Harriet Delaney, who afterwards dropped in upon them, set off for the all-consoling Sargent's in fairly good humor, there to spend not only a talkative session, but their pocket money as well.

It was not until Jerry, Constance and Marjorie had reluctantly torn themselves from their friends to stroll homeward through the crisp December air that Jerry unburdened herself with gusto.

"Marjorie Dean," she began impetuously, "do you or don't you know why you nearly fell down in that rush?"

"I know, of course," nodded Marjorie. "Someone swept me forward and I almost lost my balance. It's happened to me before. What is it that you are trying to tell me, Jerry?"

"That someone was Row-ena," stated Jerry briefly. "Isn't that so, Connie?"

"It looked that way," Connie admitted. "I thought she played very roughly all through the game."

"If it were she, I don't believe she did it purposely," responded Marjorie. "Even if she did, I'm not going to worry about it. I rather expected she might. Mignon used to do that sort of thing. You remember what a time we had about it last year. But her team and ours were concerned in it. That's why I took it up. As it was only I to whom it happened this time, I shall say nothing. I don't wish to start trouble over basket ball this year. If I spoke of it to Ellen she would take it up. You know what Rowena Farnham would say. She'd declare it was simply a case of spite on my part. That I was using it only as an excuse for not being able to throw that last ball to basket. Then she'd go around and tell others that we were whining because we were beaten in a fair fight. I might better say nothing at all. The only thing for us to do is to keep our own counsel and win the next game."

"I guess your head is level," was Jerry's gloomy admission. She was as much distressed over their defeat as were the juniors themselves.

"Marjorie's head is _always_ level," smiled Constance Stevens. "I am almost certain that you girls will win the next game. Luck just happened to be with the soph.o.m.ores to-day. I don't think they work together as well as you. Miss Farnham is a much better player than the others.