one who is not too far away from us," and she glanced
significantly across the table to where Doris Leighton sat with the
candle-light shining in her bright hair and a little smile curving her
pink lips.

Patricia caught the look, and was instantly both astonished and
indignant.

"I don't see how you can think that!" she cried hotly, and then hastily
lowering her voice, she added: "You must have known who they chose for
leader, even if you both were at the tail of the march."

Griffin grinned good-naturedly. "Keep your righteous wrath for the
right fellow, young 'un. When you've been in the night life as many
years as I have, you'll know that we don't choose a leader--she simply
elects herself by taking the head of the procession. We never know
who's who after we rig up. That's part of the game. So, you see, it
may have been the charming Doris, or Howes here, or my unworthy self,
that put those obnoxious questions to your sister--no one knows for
sure, and the mean cuss won't tell."

"Why should she want to be horrid to Elinor?" persisted Patricia,
frowning a little in her earnestness. "We don't know her very well
yet, but she's been perfectly sweet to us both."

"That describes her to a T, doesn't it, Howes?" grinned the
imperturbable Griffin. "That's the way we find her--so sweet that she
is sickening, eh?"

"Hush, she'll hear you!" warned Howes, laughing a little, nevertheless,
whereupon Patricia instantly decided that she had been mistaken in
Margaret Howes' character, and that she was less open-minded and
warm-hearted than she had believed.

"I can't see why you should pitch on her," insisted Patricia, kneading
her cake into pills in her agitation. "What could she have against
Elinor?"

Griffin yawned elaborately and then addressed Margaret Howes with
lifted eyebrows.

"This young person, though evidently of an investigating turn of mind,
has not quite fathomed the nature of the reigning beauty of our little
coterie. Being of a candid and affable nature herself, she fails to
comprehend how the fangs of the green-eyed monster, once fastened in
the tender heart of said beauty, make the said beauty so mortally
uncomfy that she's bound to take it out on somebody--and who so natural
or convenient as the critter who sicked the serpent on her."

"You mean that she is jealous of Elinor?" asked Patricia, opening her
eyes very wide. "Why, Elinor is only a beginner, and _she's_ studied
abroad!"

"All