Mary's voice trailed away into a silence that outrivaled mere speech.

The two girls sat staring at the jeweled token before them as though fearing to break the spell their general's message had evoked.

"Isn't it queer?" came from Mary, "I don't feel a bit like crying. When all the nice things happened to me downstairs I wanted to cry. But this letter and my wonderful Shield of Valor make me feel different; as though I'd like to march out and conquer the world!"

Marjorie's red lips curved into a tender smile as she took the pin from the box and fastened it in the folds of lace where Mary's gown fell away at the throat. "That's because it is a true talisman," she reminded softly. "We never knew when long ago we played being soldiers just for fun that we were only getting ready to be soldiers in earnest."

CHAPTER IV-THE NEW SECRETARY

"I'm ready to go to school, Captain!" Marjorie Dean popped her curly head into the living room. "Is the note ready, too? It's simply dear in you to give me a chance to call on Miss Archer."

"Just a moment." Mrs. Dean hastily addressed an envelope and slipped into it the note she had just finished writing. "I could mail it, I suppose, but I thought you might like to play special messenger," she observed, handing Marjorie the note.

"It was a glorious thought," laughed Marjorie. "I wanted to see Miss Archer yesterday, but I didn't like to go to her office on the very first day without a good excuse. Do I look nice, Captain?" she inquired archly.

"You know you do, vain child." Mrs. Dean surveyed the dainty figure of her daughter with pardonable pride. "That quaint flowered organdie frock exactly suits you. Now salute your captain and hurry along. I don't care to have you tardy on my account."

Marjorie embraced her mother in her usual tempestuous fashion and went skipping out of the house and down the stone walk with the joyous abandon of a little girl. Once the gate had swung behind her she dropped into a more decorous gait as she hurried along the wide, shady street toward school. "Oh, goodness!" she murmured. When within two blocks of the high school building she glimpsed the City Hall clock. Its huge, black hands pointed to five minutes to nine. "I'll have to run for it,"

was her dismayed reflection. "If I hurry, I can make it. I won't have time to put my hat in my new junior locker, though."

Decorum now discarded, Marjorie set off on a brisk run that brought her into the locker room at precisely one minute to nine. Hastily depositing her dainty rose-trimmed leghorn on a convenient window ledge, she ran up the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs to the study hall, gaining the seat a.s.signed to her the previous day just as the nine o'clock bell clanged forth its warning. She smiled rather contemptuously as she noted the disapproving glance Miss Merton flung in her direction. She had escaped a scolding by virtue of a few brief seconds.

"_She_ hasn't changed a bit," was Marjorie's inward judgment, as she turned her gaze upon the rows of students; called together again to continue their earnest march along the road of education. Her heart thrilled with pride as she noted how few vacant seats the great study hall held. The freshman cla.s.s was unusually large. She noticed there were a number of girls she had never before seen. It looked, too, as though none of last year's freshmen had dropped out of school. As for the juniors, they were all present, even to Mignon La Salle. But how decidedly grown-up the French girl looked! Her black curls were arranged in an ultra-fashionable knot at the back of her head that made her appear several years older than she really was. Her gown, too, an elaborate affair of sage green pongee, with wide bands of heavy insertion, added to her years. She looked very little like a school girl Marjorie thought.

Lost in contemplation of the new Mignon, she was rudely reminded of the fact that she was staring by Mignon herself. Their eyes meeting, Mignon made a face at Marjorie by way of expressing her candid opinion of the girl she disliked. Marjorie colored and hastily looked away, amused rather than angry at this display of childishness. It hardly accorded with her grown-up air. She had not realized that she had been guilty of staring. Her mind was intent on trying to recall something she had heard in connection with the French girl that now eluded her memory. Shrugging her shoulders she dismissed it as a matter of small consequence.

As the members of the four cla.s.ses were still vacillating between which subjects to take up and which to exclude from their programs of study, cla.s.ses that morning were to mean a mere business of a.s.sembling in the various recitation rooms, there to receive the first instructions from the special teachers before settling down to the usual routine of lessons.

For her junior program, Marjorie had decided upon third year French, English Literature, Caesar's Commentaries and civil government. As she had recently begun piano lessons, she had wisely concluded that, with piano practice, four subjects would keep her sufficiently busy. Her interest in music had developed as a result of her a.s.sociation with Constance Stevens. She yearned to be able some day to accompany Constance's beautiful voice on the piano. Mrs. Dean had long deplored the fact that Marjorie was not interested in becoming at least a fair pianist. Herself a musician of considerable skill, she believed it a necessary accomplishment for girls and was delighted when Marjorie had announced that she wished to begin lessons on the piano.

By reciting English literature during the first period of the morning and French the second, the last period before noon was hers for study.

Civil government and Caesar recitations the first two periods of the afternoon left her the last hour of that session free. She had always tried to arrange her subjects to gain that coveted afternoon period, and now she felt especially pleased at being able to also reserve the last period of the morning for study.

It was while she sat in her old place in French cla.s.s, listening to the obsequiously polite adjurations of Professor Fontaine, that she remembered the still undelivered note from her mother to Miss Archer.

"I'm a faithless messenger," was her rueful thought. "I'll hurry to Miss Archer's office with Captain's note the minute cla.s.s is over."

Contritely patting a fold of her lace-trimmed blouse where she had tucked the letter for safe-keeping, Marjorie gave strict attention to the earnestly-exhorting instructor.

"Eet ees een thees cla.s.s that we shall read the great works of the incomparable French awthors," he announced with an impressive roll of r's. "Eet ees of a truth necessary that you should become familiar weeth them. You moost, therefore, stoody your lessons and be thus always preepaired. Eet ees sad when my pupeels come to me with so many fleemsy excuses. Thees year I shall nevaire accept them. I most eenseest that you preepaire each day the lesson for the next."

Marjorie smiled to herself. The long-suffering professor was forever preaching a preparedness, which it never fell to his lot to see diligently practised by the majority of his pupils. Personally, she could not be cla.s.sed among the guilty. Her love of the musical language kept her interest in it unflagging, thereby making her one of the professor's most dependable props.

The recitation over, she paused to greet the odd little man, who received her with delight, warmly shaking her hand. "Eet ees a grand plaisir thus to see you again, Mees Marjorie," he declared. "Ah, I am a.s.sured that you at least weel nevaire say 'oonpreepaired.'"

"I'll try not to. I'm ever so glad to see you, too, Professor Fontaine."

After a brief exchange of pleasantries she left the cla.s.s room a trifle hurriedly and set off to call on Miss Archer.

Entering the s.p.a.cious living-room office, she was forcibly reminded that Marcia Arnold's high school days had ended on the previous June. The pretty room was quite deserted. Marjorie sighed as she glanced toward the vacant chair, drawn under the closed desk that had been Marcia's.

How much she would miss her old friend. Since that day long past on which they had come to an understanding, she and Marcia had found much in common. Marjorie sighed regretfully, wondering who Miss Archer's next secretary would be.

As there was no one about to announce her, she walked slowly toward the half-closed door of the inner office. Pausing just outside, she peeped in. Her eyes widened with surprise as she caught sight of an unfamiliar figure. A tall, very attractive young woman stood before the princ.i.p.al's desk, busily engaged in the perusal of a printed sheet of paper which she held in her hand. It looked as though Miss Archer had already secured someone in Marcia's place.

"May I come in, please?" Marjorie asked sweetly, halting in the doorway.

The girl at the desk uttered a faint exclamation. The paper she held fluttered to the desk. A wave of color dyed her exquisitely tinted skin as she turned a pair of large, startled, black eyes upon the intruder.

For a second the two girls eyed each other steadily. Marjorie conceived a curious impression that she had seen this stranger before, yet it was too vague to convey to her the slightest knowledge of the other's ident.i.ty.

"You are Miss Archer's new secretary, are you not?" she asked frankly.

"You can tell me, perhaps, where to find her. I have a note to deliver to her personally."

A quick shade of relief crossed the other girl's suddenly flushing face.

Smiling in self-possessed fashion, she said, "Miss Archer will not be back directly. I cannot tell you when she will return."

"I think I'll wait here for her," decided Marjorie. "I have no recitation this period."

The stranger's arched brows arched themselves a trifle higher. "As you please," she returned indifferently. She again turned her attention to the papers on the desk.

Seating herself on the wide oak bench, Marjorie took speculative stock of the new secretary. "What a stunning girl," was her mental opinion.

"She's dressed rather too well for a secretary, though," flashed across her as she noted the smart gown of white china silk, the very cut of which pointed to the work of a high-priced modiste. "I suppose she's getting examination papers ready for the new pupils. I wonder why she doesn't sit down."

As she thus continued to cogitate regarding the stranger, the girl frowned deeply at another paper she had picked up and swung suddenly about. "Are you just entering high school?" she asked with direct abruptness.

"Oh, no." Marjorie smilingly shook her head. "I am a junior."

"Are you?" The stranger again lost herself in puzzled contemplation of the paper. Hearing an approaching footfall she made a quick move toward the center of the office, raising her eyes sharply to greet a girl who had come in quest of Miss Archer. Promptly disposing of the seeker, she returned to her task. Several times after that she was interrupted by the entrance of various students, whom she received coolly and dismissed with, "Not here. I don't know when Miss Archer will return." Marjorie noted idly that with every fresh arrival, the young woman continued to move well away from the desk.

Marjorie watched her in fascination. She was undoubtedly beautiful in a strangely bold fashion, but apparently very cold and self-centered. She had received the students who had entered the office with a brusqueness that bordered on discourtesy. Two or three of them, whom Marjorie knew, had greeted her in friendly fashion, at the same time mutely questioning with uplifted brows as to whom this stranger might be.

"This problem in quadratic equations is a terror," the girl at the desk suddenly remarked, her finger pointing to a row of algebraic symbols on the paper she was still clutching. "Algebra's awfully hard, isn't it?"

"I always liked it," returned Marjorie, glad of a chance to break the silence. "What is the problem?"

"Come here," ordered the other girl. "I don't call _that_ an easy problem. Do you?"

Marjorie rose and approached the desk. The stranger handed her the paper, indexing the vexatious problem.

"Oh, that's not so very hard," was Marjorie's light response.

"Can you work it out?" came the short inquiry, a note of suppressed eagerness in the questioner's voice.

"Why, I suppose so. Can't you?"

"I was trying it before you came in just for fun. I've forgotten my algebra, I guess. I don't believe I got the right result. It's rather good practice to review, isn't it?"

"She must be a senior," sprang to Marjorie's mind. Aloud, she agreed that it was. "I ought not to have forgotten my algebra," she added.

"It's only a year since I finished it."