"Am I asked?" demanded Patricia with eager eyes.
"Of course, or I'd have sent word by you instead of phoning," said Elinor quickly. "Come along down, both of you. Everything is ready, and Margaret Howes is making Welsh rarebit just specially for you--she heard you say you adored it. Hurry, hurry."
The feast was half over when Patricia, who sat between Margaret Howes and Griffin and opposite to the adorable Doris Leighton, got a distinct shock.
The girls had been talking of the initiation and the part that Elinor had played.
"Your sister has covered herself with glory by the way she took her hazing," said Margaret, deftly winding a long string of the rarebit around a bread stick and popping it in her mouth.
"She certainly saved us from a fluke by the nice fashion in which she turned the popular attention from that idiot who was leading the band," added Griffin, reaching for the mustard.
Patricia longed to ask a question, but Margaret Howes saved her the necessity.
"Who was it, do you know, Griffin?" she inquired in a lowered tone.
"Can't be certain, of course, but I have my doubts," replied Griffin, in the same pitch. "I think that I recognized the silvery tones of a fair 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."