Reassured, and again smiling, Clarisse took on still another attitude, determined to emphatically emphasize the seriousness of her mission. She could not guess that Jane’s apparent joking had a motive, if not sinister, then deeply planned. Jane was stalling. She was using up time to kill time, and she played against time for time. All of which college girls are supposed to understand as within the ethics of school girl diplomacy. “Well, Janie, it is this way,” again attempted the persistent freshman. “We have our show all planned. It is entirely original—we wrote every word of it and Nellie composed the music. Did you know that?” “No, I did not!” admitted Jane, now showing interest. “Of course you didn’t. It was all a deep secret. But just when we were ready to drop the girls down the chimney—oh, that was another secret——” “Trust me. I shall never disclose the dark, dire secret,” Jane assured her. “No, I am sure you will not. You see, the story called for two girls to come down the barn chimney——” “Barn swallows,” suggested Jane. “No, chimney sweeps,” corrected Clarisse. “The story was laid in London, and we had Mad Madge of Moscow. Of course that was Nellie because she had to play the violin—just fiddle away all the time.” Jane was beginning to see light. Mad Madge for Helen in the face of the perfidious gossip declaring her really mad! “It all went perfectly beautiful,” Clarisse declared, “until some girls said—well, they said it was so easy for Nellie to act the mad part she must be—what the other girls said she was.” Little Clarisse was too childlike, and too well bred to bolt out with the accusation that Helen had been called mad. But Jane sensed the story as clearly as if it had been actually screened before her eyes. Yes, in all Helen’s school affairs, this gossip was now injecting its poison. Even so absurd a story gained credence with action like rolling a snowball, growing as it turns. “But why let such foolish talk influence you?” asked Jane. “Oh, we didn’t! Indeed we didn’t!” This with wide-eyed consternation. “But the trouble was with the tickets. When we went to the campus house all along the other side not a girl would accept a ticket——” “Don’t you think that was just a case of boycott?” suggested Jane. “Well, maybe so. But we had to have the Flip-Flops. You know we call those girls who are always changing quarters the Flip-Flops. Isn’t that a dreadful name? But Dickey Ripple stuck it on.” “They are changeable, to say the least, and they do stunts very like the Flip-Flop,” Jane agreed, “still it is not a pretty title to sail under.” “No, I realize that,” apologized the gullible Clarisse, “and I didn’t mean to use the horrid word again. First thing we know it will slip out in faculty hearing, then we will be disciplined. Well, anyway, where was I at?” “At distributing your invitations. You said they were refused. On what grounds, Clara?”