Laughing and joking the five post graduates hurried lightly up the stairs and down the second floor hall to room number 8. Nor when Vera knocked lightly on the door had it been decided as to which one of them should be spokesman. The girl who answered the knock seemed lovelier to her callers than when they had seen her alighting from the taxicab that afternoon. She wore a pale primrose negligee which fell in straight soft folds to her feet. Its flowing sleeves dropped away from her white, rounded arms and the collarless cut of the negligee brought out the beauty of her shapely throat. Her peculiarly colored eyes roved from one face to another. They held a certain veiled inquiry not far from insolence. She was silent; evidently waiting for her callers to speak first. “Good evening.” While Marjorie had not consented to begin the making of friendly overtures with the prospective student she felt impelled to break the silence. “We are having a spread downstairs in the dining room. Miss Remson is giving it. Won’t you join us?” she invited with pleasant directness. “Oh, no, thank you. You could hardly expect me to come down _en deshabille_.” Contempt for invitation and callers lurked faintly in the answer; a contempt which the girls felt rather than heard. “That need make no difference,” Marjorie composedly returned. “There are no persons other than ourselves and the servants in the house. You know how purely informal a spread must be in order to be a success.” “I don’t enjoy spreads,” came the indifferent reply. “Besides sweets late in the evening are so hard on one’s complexion.” One of the blonde girl’s white, beautifully kept hands found the door and rested against the knob. Whether by accident or design was hard to say. “I am sorry you do not care to come,” Marjorie said with the gentle courtesy which never seemed to fail her in the face of rebuff. “Pardon me for being so remiss. Let me introduce my friends and myself to you. Miss Remson has told us that you are Miss Monroe.” The indifferent expression on the girl’s face appeared to increase rather than diminish. She merely stared at the group and said not a word. Marjorie felt uncomfortable embarrassment seize her. Nevertheless friendliness continued in her tone as she named her chums to the other girl. Miss Monroe had the grace to acknowledge the introduction. She nodded carelessly to each girl in turn, the air of furtive contempt which had visited her at sight of the callers returning. “We should be glad to show you about Hamilton and the campus,” Vera rallied to Marjorie’s assistance. “We are visiting Miss Remson for a short time. We shall return to college in the fall and shall live at Wayland Hall. So we shall be your neighbors. Miss Harper’s and my room is 10. We are using our old room now, and it will be ours again when we come back in the fall.”