I wasn't to blame.
Start an inquiry and the result will be we'll not be allowed to keep
our cars at college. That will hit some of your friends as well as
myself and mine."

"I give you my word that I shall drop the matter. I know my friends have
no desire to keep it active. I say this in their defense. I cannot allow
you to misunderstand or belittle their principles."

Katherine spoke with marked stiffness. She could endure Leslie's
supercilious manner toward herself. When it came to laying the fault at
the door of her beloved friends--that was not to be borne.

"I'm not in the least interested in your friends. All I want them to do
is to mind their own business about this accident. If you say they will,
I look to you to keep your word. If you will accept a money settlement,
say what you want and I will hand you a check for that amount." Leslie
made this offer with cool insolence.

"Please don't!" Katherine was ready to cry with weakness and hurt pride.
"I--won't you look upon the whole affair as though it had not happened?
Money is the last thing to be thought of."

"Very well; since that is your way of looking at it." Leslie rose. She
experienced a malicious satisfaction in having thus "taken a rise out of
the beggar." Her point gained, she was anxious to be gone. "Hope you
will soon be as well as ever. If you need anything, let me know. I must
hurry along. I have a very important dinner engagement this evening.
Goodbye."

She made a hasty exit, without offering her hand in farewell. Katherine
lay back among her pillows with a long sigh of sheer relief. She felt
that she could not have endured her caller two minutes longer without
telling her frankly how utterly she detested her.

Marjorie and Jerry coming cheerily in upon her soon after classes, she
confided to them the news of Leslie's call.

"The idea," sniffed Jerry. "Wish I had been here. I'd have told Miss
Bully Cairns where she gets off at. How does she know but that President
Matthews knows about it already? There were several freshies in her car.
No doubt they were all her sort or they wouldn't have been with her.
Look at the freshies in Miss Stephens' car. They were the first on the
scene and were awfully sweet to us. What would hinder any one of them
from 'stirring things up' if they disapproved of the way Miss Cairns
acted? I mean the way she took her time about coming back after she ran
Katherine down. She had better make the rounds of the coll