Betty Wales decides

Montana Marie had dozens of invitations to spend the spring vacation with college friends. But she declined them all. “You see, Ma misses me a lot,” she explained, “and she’s been counting on coming East to help me buy my spring clothes. So I guess I can’t very well disappoint her.”

So Mrs. and Miss O’Toole became for a week leading features of New York’s largest and showiest hotel; and there various of Marie’s New York friends, encountering the pair in the corridors or the tea-room, or dining wonderfully behind a screen of hovering waiters, were treated to samples of Mrs. O’Toole’s choice observations, couched in Mrs. O’Toole’s choice English. Sometimes Marie giggled amiably at her mother’s remarks, and sometimes she explained “what Ma really means to say.” But she never appeared embarrassed, never showed annoyance, and never though invitations were again showered upon her, accepted one that did not include Mrs. O’Toole.

“You see Ma’s been expecting a good time this week,” she explained simply. “She’s come way from California to see me, and so I guess I can’t leave her alone much.”

And for every girl who made fun of Mrs. O’Toole, there was another to defend Marie’s loyalty; so that she went back for her spring term at Harding more talked about than ever, more laughed at, and more stoutly championed.

Having discovered the rules of true concentration, Marie had plenty of time for recreation, especially now that soft April breezes had melted hard faculty hearts, and spring-term standards made life easy. She entered into all the season’s diversions with her customary zest, but the event that fairly stirred her soul was the junior prom. For one day—nay, two,—the Harding campus would be black with men! Montana Marie sighed joyously at this pleasing prospect, and listened eagerly to the plans, hopes, fears, and disappointments that preluded the great occasion.

Connie wasn’t going to the prom., Montana Marie discovered to her horror. The idea of missing your junior prom.!

“Why aren’t you going?” she demanded incisively.

“Because I don’t know any man to ask,” Connie replied with her usual directness.

“Goodness!” sighed Montana Marie. “Why, I know dozens of men! I’ll get you a man, and you can save me one little dance in exchange for him. Do you prefer that Winsted senior that Mr. Ford brought to call on me last week—you saw him in the parlor when you came down to dinner, so you can size him up—or would you rather have a man that I met when I was in New York? They won’t want to go with you? Nonsense! Any man wants to go to a Harding prom. Give me two dances, if it will make you feel any better about it.”

Connie’s good fortune having been noised abroad, Georgia Ames made prompt application for a man.

“They always let in a few seniors, you know, and I’m pining to be one of them. Ask the New York man for me, and you can have three perfectly good dances as your reward.”

“Done!” giggled Montana Marie joyously. “Say, if I provided men for enough juniors and seniors, why, I could get a whole program of dances for myself, couldn’t I? I’m just longing for a real man-dance. I went to one in New York, and it just started me up. Georgia, tell your nice junior friends about me, won’t you? There’s a man in Chicago that could come to this prom. as well as not, and a man at Yale, and two in Malden, Mass., and—oh, well, just dozens of them. I’ve got letters from most of them here. The girls can read the letters and take their pick. Why, this prom.’s going to be real exciting, if I am only a little freshman that’s supposed to sit on the fire-escape and watch the fun. You’re sure there won’t be any trouble about smuggling me in?”

Georgia was confident that there would not be any trouble on that score. “You can be a freshman waitress,” she explained. “You would be anyway, because they always pick out the prettiest ones to serve the lemonade. And then you can just abandon the lemonade, and dance. It’s been done before now, I guess.”

Montana Marie smiled engagingly. “If I got an extra man for myself, why, then you poor things wouldn’t have to sit out the dances that you gave me.”

Georgia shook her head doubtfully at that suggestion. “You’d better not try it. It’s rather nice for us to sit out—gives us a chance to cool off in peace now and then. Anyway, freshman waitresses aren’t supposed to ask men for themselves. You couldn’t do it.”

“All right,” agreed Montana Marie complacently. “I don’t want to do anything that isn’t done. Georgia, how would you like a Montana cowboy for your prom. man?”

“Depends on how well he can dance,” Georgia parried.

“Oh, he can dance all right enough,” Montana Marie assured her. “There’s only one trouble——”

“Of course,” laughed Georgia. “The trouble that’s common to all the nicest prom. men. They can’t come.”

“Oh, he’d come fast enough, if I asked him,” Montana Marie declared easily. “He’d come like lightning. But when he got here I’m afraid he’d want at least six dances with me. And that’s too much for any junior to give up. So, as I can’t have an extra man for myself, I can’t ask him.”

“Too bad,” sympathized Georgia. “I’ll go and tell some juniors about your Prom. Man Supply Company. Are you sure the men’s letters can be on exhibition?”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Montana Marie carelessly. “You see, I used to like some of those men pretty well once on a time, but now—— Oh, yes, they can choose by the letters if they want to.”

As a matter of fact, no patron of the Prom. Man Supply Company made use of the proprietor’s private correspondence in making her choice from the “dozens” of available prom. men. They all left the question of suitability to Marie, who discussed qualifications at length with her patrons, considered each case with the same care that she bestowed on the intricacies of Latin prose, and sent off her invitations-by-proxy with a confidence that was the admiration of all beholders. But her proverbial good luck held. All the men that she asked promptly accepted; and to a woman did each patron find satisfaction in her allotment. The fee per man was necessarily reduced to two dances, and counting in the one dance promised to Jim Watson, who had written to announce that he was coming up to help Betty chaperon the party, Marie’s program was full, except for supper and the last dance; and Marie was the envy of her class, and more of a celebrity than ever.

And then Marie was late for the first dance. It had been such hard work introducing everybody and arranging things, she explained glibly, when she finally hurried in just in time for one short turn around the hall with Connie’s man from Winsted. She was wearing a black and white dress, with touches of vivid scarlet.

“I guess you’ll find me all right for our next dance,” she told the Winsted man gaily. “You’d know this dress as far as you can see it. That’s always one good thing about the clothes Ma picks out for me.”

Then came Jim’s dance. Montana Marie sweetly begged Betty to keep it for herself, but when Betty laughingly declared that Jim had made that waltz a condition of coming up for the prom., she swept him off across the still empty floor. Betty watched her vivid gown weaving in and out in the crowd, as couple after couple joined the dance, and then lost sight of her, and forgot all about her, until first Georgia, then Timmy Wentworth, and next Connie, each followed by a dejected-looking escort, came to ask if she had seen anything of Montana Marie.

At the end of the second dance, it seemed, Montana Marie O’Toole had vanished magically from the junior prom. The men who had gathered from near and far to bask in her smiles, as their reward for doing escort duty to her friends, departed with only one last tantalizing glimpse of her. This they got when she reappeared just in time to dance the last waltz. She danced it with a man who had not been invited to the prom. for any patroness of the Prom. Man Supply Company. And just before the music stopped she vanished once more, not to reappear until the following morning, when she achieved the masterly feat of taking six men to chapel, and three others to breakfast afterward at the Tally-ho, with complete satisfaction to all parties concerned. It remained only to pacify the patronesses of the Prom. Man Supply Company, and to them she made full and unabashed explanation of her conduct.

“I don’t wonder you thought I was perfectly outrageous, if you didn’t get any of my messages. Why, I sent dozens of messages to all of you! You see I felt horribly sick and dizzy after the second dance—I thought of course Mr. Watson noticed it. So I went out to get some air. I came back after a while, but the lights and the heat made me dreadfully giddy again. So off I dashed. But I did hate to miss everything, so I slipped in for the last waltz. That man—oh, he wasn’t one of the Prom. Man Supply ones. He was—well, you pick out the most unselfish junior you can think of,—one who’d be capable of giving up her last beautiful prom. waltz to a poor unfortunate little freshman,—and maybe you’ll guess right.”

“Did you have a good supper?” asked Timmy Wentworth abruptly. She had heard strange rumors of a waiter’s having been exorbitantly tipped by a couple who had bribed him to bring their supper down to the apple orchard.

Montana Marie laughed delightedly. “How did you know about that?” she demanded. “I didn’t eat any dinner because I’d been to so many prom. teas in the afternoon; but when I began to feel queer in the evening, I thought perhaps a cup of coffee and a sandwich would do me good. So I got a nice waiter to bring me some outside. Wasn’t that all right? Weren’t there coffee and sandwiches enough to go round?”

Timmy nodded, smiling a sarcastic little smile. “Plenty, thank you. Was the man in the hammock, who helped you get and eat the sandwich, also lent by that same very accommodating junior?”

Montana Marie stared in offended dignity. “Wouldn’t almost any junior, especially those that I’d asked men for, be pleased to lend me a man to find a waiter and then show him where I was sitting out in the orchard—feeling quite ill and giddy?” Montana Marie’s tone changed suddenly, growing soft and persuasive. “Say, I almost forgot to tell you what George Dorsey said about you. He said that you were just exactly his ideal of an American college girl, and he hopes to come up here again next month.”

Timmy Wentworth smiled—this time cordially. For she had found George Dorsey a very satisfactory example of the American college man. “He said something to me about motoring up in June,” she admitted, “and I hope he will. He’s very nice, if he is an arrant flatterer. I’m really ever so much obliged to you, Marie, for asking him up for me. Come to dinner to-night, and I’ll tell you all the jists that happened.”

“I’m not going to bother her any more about how she spent her evening,” Timmy told Georgia later. “It was slightly embarrassing for a few minutes, consoling poor Mr. Dorsey for the loss of the only two dances that he specially wanted. But that’s over and done with now, and the way she acted is her own affair.”

“I hate a person who cuts dances,” declared honest Georgia bluntly.

“Maybe she did really feel ill.”

“She seems to have felt like flirting around in the moonlight. Eugenia Ford saw her holding hands on the Morton steps.”

“With the same mysterious man?”

“Eugenia couldn’t be sure.”

“Whose was he, I wonder? He was nothing so much of a dancer.”

“He looked nice and big and brown and jolly.”

“And he never took his eyes off Marie once. That was the principal thing I noticed about him.”

Timmy’s generous attitude toward the manager of the Prom. Man Supply Company was promptly adopted by the other patronesses. So easily placated, indeed, and so agreeable were they, that Montana Marie, who had basely deceived them with half truths and timely repetitions of vain compliments, was speedily stricken with remorse. A few days after the prom. she sought out Betty, and told her all about it.

“You see, Miss Wales, I did feel ill. I’d worried so about all those men, and I’d talked so hard all the afternoon. And then a man from home came to see me—somebody I know awfully well. Of course he wanted to come to the prom., but Georgia had said I couldn’t have anybody, so—well, I couldn’t be rude and leave him. I just told him I didn’t care about the prom. You see, Miss Wales, even if I’d smuggled him in, I hadn’t any dances left for him—but two. And that isn’t his idea of going to a dance with me. So we just wandered around in the cool, and Fred got a waiter to bring us elegant things to eat, and when the last dance came we just calmly walked in—all the ushers and doorkeepers had gone away by that time. We simply couldn’t resist that music. And I’ve let them suppose, Miss Wales,—I’ve pretty nearly said to those other girls that I cut dances with,—that some junior gave up her last dance and her man to me. Do you think that was perfectly horrid of me, Miss Wales?”

“Of course I think it’s always better to tell things just as they are.” Betty tried to be tactful and truthful at once.

Marie nodded vigorous agreement. “I should say it is. You get all tangled up and ashamed of yourself when you try to fix up a good story. You see, Miss Wales, I wrote Fred about the prom., and about the men I’d asked for those juniors, and he just up and came himself. I didn’t ask him. I especially explained that I couldn’t ask any one for myself. But he was bound to come along just the same.”

“Rather a long trip, wasn’t it?” asked Betty, feeling her way a little.

“Oh, well, he’s going to stay East quite a while, I guess,” Marie told her.

And then for no reason at all Marie blushed furiously, laughed at herself for blushing, and finally explained that Fred had never been ’way East before and it made her laugh to remember the comical things he had told about his long journey. “He’s in New York now,” she went on. “I expect he’s doing the town in real cowboy and miner style. He’s a sure enough cowboy and miner, Miss Wales.”

“Is he coming up here again?” asked Betty, just to show an interest.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Montana Marie gaily. Then she flushed and laughed again. “If you want my honest opinion, I should say that he very likely is. Now I’ll go and make myself square with Georgia and Miss Wentworth and the rest of them. They are awfully easy marks, or they’d have seen through me. Good-bye, Miss Wales. No warnings so far, and concentration is working to the queen’s taste.”