But Jean Brent was in no mood for this advice. It caused her anger to blaze afresh. "There you go again," she blustered, "with your goody-goody advice to me about running to Miss Harlowe with every little thing I do. I hope I'm not such a baby. If Miss Harlowe sends for me, don't think for a minute that I'll be afraid to face her, but until she _does_ send for me I am not going to concern myself about it, and I would advise you not to trouble yourself, either." With this succinct advice Jean made a fresh onslaught on the unoffending wardrobe. Opening it she seized her hat and coat. With a last reverberating slam of its long-suffering doors she turned her back on it and Evelyn, and switched defiantly out of the room and on out of the house. CHAPTER X LAYING THE CORNERSTONE OF A HOUSE OF TROUBLE Jean did not return to Harlowe House for dinner that night. Instead she turned her steps toward Holland House, where Althea Parker lived, assured that in Althea she would find sympathy. In spite of the fact that Jean lived at Harlowe House, a plain acknowledgment of her lack of means, Althea shrewdly suspected that the mysterious freshman had come from a home of wealth, and was posing as a poor girl for some reason best known to herself. Jean's remarkable wardrobe had impressed her deeply, while Jean herself carried out the impression of having been brought up in luxury. She was self-willed, extravagant, careless of the future, and her flippant opinion, delivered to Althea, of the Service Bureau and work in general, was all that was needed to convince the shrewd junior of Jean's true position in life. Then, too, Jean was extremely likable, although Althea stood a little in awe of her remarkable poise and a certain imperiousness that occasionally crept into the girl's manner. Jean rang the bell at Holland House with mingled feelings of resentment and defiance. Resentment against Evelyn for daring to take her to task; defiance of Grace and her commands. "Is Miss Parker in?" she inquired of the maid who opened the door. "She just came in, miss." "Very well. I'll go on upstairs. She won't mind me." Jean knocked on Althea's door. Althea called an indifferent "Come in," and she entered to find her engaged in reading a letter that had come by the afternoon mail. "Oh, hello, Jean," she drawled at sight of the other girl. "You must have come in right behind me. What are you glowering about?" "Evelyn is angry with me because I had the sale," began Jean. "That's what I came to tell you. I'm sorry I told her that Miss Harlowe had forbidden me to have it. Now she thinks I ought to go to Miss Harlowe and tell her that I disobeyed her before she hears of it from some other source." "Nonsense!" exclaimed Althea. "Don't be so silly. Ten chances to one she'll never hear of it. If ever she does, it will probably be as ancient history. I'll caution the girls again to keep still. Who told Evelyn?"