A PROBLEM IN ETHICS
Betty Wales sat in Dorothy King's big wicker easy chair, an expression of
mingled distress and perplexity on her usually merry face. Dorothy had
sent word that she was ill and wanted to see her little friend, and Betty
had hurried over in her first free period, never guessing at the strange
story that Dorothy had summoned her to hear. The story was told now. It
remained only for Betty to decide what she should do about it.
"It's the most annoying thing," Dorothy was saying from the bed where she
lay, pale and listless, among the pillows. "I've heard of girls being ill
from overwork, and I always thought they were good-for-nothings, glad of
an excuse to stay in bed for awhile. But I can't get up, Betty. I tried
hard this morning before the doctor came, and it made me so sick and
faint--you can't imagine. So there was nothing to do but submit when she
insisted upon my going to the infirmary for two weeks."
"I'm so sorry," murmured Betty sympathetically.
"She tried to make me promise not to see any one except the matron before
I was moved," went on Dorothy, "but I told her I must talk to you for
half an hour. I promised on my honor not to keep you longer than that,
and we haven't but ten minutes left. Now won't you decide to go and see
Mr. Blake?"
"Oh, I don't know what to decide!" cried Betty in despairing tones. "It's
so dreadful that Eleanor should have done it. That's all I can think of."
"But listen to me, Betty," began Dorothy patiently. "Let me show you just
how matters stand. Frances can't go down to New York alone--you can see
that. She doesn't know the city, and she'd get lost or run over, and ten
to one come home without even remembering to see Mr. Blake. You can't
believe how absent-minded she is, till you've worked with her as I have.
Besides, she is too dreamy and imaginative to convince a man of Mr.
Blake's type.
"And Bess Egerton mustn't go; Frances and I are agreed about that. She's
too flighty. She'd be angry if Mr. Blake didn't yield his point
immediately, and say something outrageous to him. Then she'd go off
shopping and come back here in the best of spirits, declaring that there
was nothing to be done because Mr. Blake was 'such a silly.' And I can't
go."
"If you only could!" broke in Betty. "Then it would be all right. Isn't
there any chance that you might be able to by the end of next week?"
Dorothy shook her head. "I couldn't get leave, on top of this two weeks'
illness, without telling Miss Stuart exactly why I needed to go, and I
don't want to do that. Miss Raymond knows all about it and approves, and
we don't want to confide in any one else. Besides, I doubt if Mr. Blake
will wait so long."
"Well then, Dorothy, why not write to him?"
Dorothy shook her head again. "We tried that. We wrote one letter, and
when his answer came we tried again, but eight pages was the least we
could get our arguments into. No, it's a case where talking it out is the
only thing to do. You could take him unawares and I'm sure you'd bring
him round."
"That's just it," broke in Betty eagerly. "I know you're mistaken,
Dorothy. I couldn't think of a thing to say to him--I never can. It would
be just a waste of time for me to try."
Dorothy took a bulky envelope from under her pillows and held it out to
Betty. "Here," she said. "These are the letters we wrote. We all three
tried. Here are arguments in plenty."
"But I should forget them all when I got there."
"You mustn't."
"Besides, it would look so queer for me to go, when I'm not on the
'Argus' board, and have nothing to do with the trouble."
"Didn't I tell you why we chose you?" exclaimed Dorothy. "No? I am so
stupid to-day; I put everything the wrong way around. Why, there were two
reasons. One is because you are so fond of Eleanor and understand her so
well. Nobody on the 'Argus' staff, except Beatrice and myself, has more
than a bowing acquaintance with her, whereas you can tell Mr. Blake
exactly what sort of girl she is, and why we want to save her from this
disgrace. The other reason is that, while Christy is away, you are one of
the two sophomores on the Students' Commission; Eleanor is a sophomore
and either you or Lucy Merrifield is the proper person to act in her
interests in a case of this kind. Because you know Eleanor best, we chose
you--and for some other reasons," added Dorothy, truthfully, remembering
the confidence they had all felt in Betty's peculiar combination of
engaging manner and indomitable pluck and perseverance, where a promise
or a friend was concerned.
"Oh, Dorothy!" sighed Betty, feeling herself hopelessly entangled in the
web of Dorothy's logic.
"There is a third reason," went on Dorothy, inexorably, "just between you
and me. Of course you understand that I feel personally to blame about
this trouble. If I hadn't lost my horrid temper and said something
disagreeable to force her hand, Eleanor Watson might never have allowed
the story to be printed and the worst complications would have been
avoided. Now I personally ask you, as the person I can best trust, to go
to Mr. Blake for me. You know Eleanor. You agree with us that it is very
likely to spoil her whole life if this is made public--"
"But, Dorothy, I'm not sure it's right to keep it a secret," broke in
Betty.
"I believe you will feel sure when you have had a chance to think over
all sides of the question," resumed Dorothy, "and to see how much to
blame I am. Then you are a typical Harding girl, the right sort to
represent the college to Mr. Blake, who seems to be very much interested
in knowing what sort of girl Harding turns out."
"Oh, no!" demurred Betty. "I'm not the right kind at all."
"Besides, you have a way of getting around people and persuading them to
do what you want," concluded Dorothy.
"Never," declared Betty.
Dorothy smiled faintly. "You have the reputation," she said. "Of course I
don't know how you got it; but now that you have it you're bound to live
up to it, you know. And if you don't go, we shall have to risk writing
and I am perfectly certain that no letter will keep Mr. Blake from
publishing his notice next month, whereas I think that if he were to talk
over the matter with you, he might very easily be persuaded to give it
up."
Dorothy lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes. "It does certainly
seem like shirking to be ill just now," she said.
Betty rose hastily and came over to the bed. "Dorothy," she began, "I
must go this minute. You are all tired out. I wish I could promise now,
but I must think it over--whether I can do what you want of me and
whether I ought. I'll tell you what," she went on eagerly, "I can't see
you again, but I'll send you a bunch of violets the first thing in the
morning, and I'll tuck in a note among the flowers, saying what I can do.
And it will be the very best I can do, Dorothy."
"I know it will," said Dorothy. "Don't think that I don't realize how
much we're asking of you."
"I like to be trusted," said Betty, ruefully, "but it seems to me there
are hundreds of girls in college who could do this better than I. Good-
bye--and look out for the violets, Dorothy."
A moment later she opened the door again. "Of course Eleanor doesn't know
that you've found out?"
"No," said Dorothy. "We've told no one but you and Miss Raymond. We
thought it would only complicate matters and hurt her needlessly to tell
her now. I suppose she will have to know eventually, to guard against a
repetition of the trouble, if for no other reason; but we haven't looked
so far ahead as that yet."
It was fortunate that Betty was not called upon to recite in her next
class. Refusing the seat that Bob Parker had saved for her between
herself and Alice Waite, she found a place in the back row where a pillar
protected her from Bob's demonstrations, and leaning her head on her hand
she set herself to work out the problem that Dorothy had given her. But
the shame of Eleanor's act overcame her, as it had in Dorothy's room; she
could not think of anything else. She woke with a start at the end of the
hour to find the girls pushing back their chairs and making their noisy
exit from the room, and to realize that she might as well have learned
something about Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, since she had decided
nothing about her trip to New York.
"I say," said Bob, joining her outside the door, "why are you so
unsociable?"
"Headache," returned Betty, laconically, and with some truth.
"Too bad." Owing to the fact that she had never had a headache in her
life, Bob's sympathy was somewhat perfunctory.
"When you have the written lesson to study for, too," mourned Alice.
"Written lesson?" questioned Betty, in dismay.
"Yes. Didn't you hear Professor White giving it out for to-morrow? All of
Napoleon--that's five hundred pages."
Betty gasped. "I suppose he made a lot of new points to-day. I didn't
hear a word."
"Next time," said Bob, severely, "perhaps you'll be willing to sit down
among people who can see that you keep awake."
"Don't tease her," begged Alice. "She must have an awful headache, not to
have heard about the written lesson. What did you think we were all
groaning so about, Betty?"
"I didn't hear that, either," said Betty, meekly. "Will one of you lend
me a notebook?"
Betty could have hugged Helen Adams when immediately after luncheon she
announced that she was going down to study history with T. Reed and
should stay till dinner time. Betty hung a "Busy" sign on her door--the
girls would think that she too was studying history madly--and set
herself to read over the original of Eleanor's story in "The Quiver" that
Dorothy had lent her. It was the same and yet not the same. Plot and
characters had been taken directly from the original, but the phrasing--
Betty knew Eleanor's story almost by heart--was quite different, and a
striking little episode at the end that Miss Raymond had particularly
admired was Eleanor's own.
"I like hers best," thought Betty, stoutly. "I wonder if the resemblance
couldn't have happened by chance. Perhaps she read this story a long
while before and forgot that she had not thought it up herself."
Betty looked at the date of the magazine and then consulted her calendar.
The November "Quiver" had come out just two days before the afternoon of
the barge ride, which had also been "theme afternoon." Betty remembered
because her monthly allowance always came on the third. She had borrowed
her quarter for the ride of Helen and paid her out of the instalment that
arrived the very next morning. That settled it,--and as Dorothy had
pointed out, all Eleanor's seemingly inexplicable queerness about the
story was now explained.
Betty threw the magazine on the table and going to the window gazed
drearily out at the snow-covered campus. The next thing to settle was
whether it were right to help Eleanor to cover up her deceit? Dorothy
felt, from the little she knew of Eleanor, that open disgrace would take
away her last chance of being honest and upright. "She is terribly
sensitive," Dorothy argued, "and if she feels that nice people don't
trust her, she will go as far as she dares to show them that they are
right. Perhaps she can be led, but she certainly can't be driven. She
isn't strong enough to meet disgrace and down it." That might be true,
but there was the mathematics examination of the year before. Miss Hale
had argued as Dorothy did. In the hope of ultimately winning Eleanor by
kindness, she had not let Miss Meredith know that Eleanor had told her an
untruth. For a while afterward Eleanor had been scrupulously honorable,
but now she had done something infinitely more dishonest than the
deception of Miss Meredith. No doubt Dorothy regarded the affair of the
story as a first offense, and Betty could not tell her that it wasn't.
She had been glad enough to help save Eleanor from the consequences of
her foolish bragging, the year before; but saving her from the
consequences of deliberate dishonesty was a different matter. Betty had
been taught to despise cheating in any form, and to avoid the least
suspicion of it with scrupulous care. And now Dorothy wanted her to aid
and abet a--a thief. Betty flushed hotly as she applied the hard name.
All at once the memory of her last interview with Eleanor flashed upon
her. "I was an idiot last fall. Now I have come to my senses--" that was
what she had said. When her voice broke, it must have been because she
was sorry for the change--sorry that the old, shifty, unreliable self had
come back to take the place of the strange new one whose ideals had
proved too hard and too high to live by. The sad, hunted look that
Madeline had spoken of was explained too. Eleanor was sorry. But was she
sorry, as she had been in the case of the mathematics examination, only
because she was afraid of being found out, or did she honestly regret
having taken what was not her own, and used it to gain honors that she
had not earned?
There was another point that Dorothy had not spoken of--perhaps had not
thought of. What about the Dramatic Club election and the other college
honors that had come or would come to Eleanor, one after another, all
because, at the beginning of her sophomore year, she had made a
reputation for brilliant literary work? Eleanor had been right, when she
was a freshman, in insisting that it was the start which counted. Then,
despite her first abject failure, she had compassed the difficult
achievement of a second start. How proud Betty had been of her! And now
all her fair hopes and high ambitions had crumbled to dust and ashes. Was
it right to help her cover up the ruin? Was it fair to girls like Helen
Adams, who worked hard and got no recognition, that Eleanor should get
recognition for work which was not her own?
Anyway, she was not going to New York. Those three editors could choose
some one else. And yet if she refused--oh, it was all dreadful! Betty
flung herself on the couch and buried her face in the pillows. A moment
later the door opened stealthily, and Madeline Ayres stuck her head in.
In spite of her caution, Betty heard her and sat up with a nervous start.
"I hope you weren't asleep," said Madeline, settling herself comfortably
at the other end of the couch. "I didn't mean to wake you; that was why I
came in without knocking."
"I wasn't asleep," returned Betty faintly. "I was just resting."
"You look as if you needed to," said Madeline cheerfully. "Does your head
ache now?"
"Not--not very much," stammered Betty.
"Have you read over all this?" Madeline reached out a long arm for the
life of Napoleon that lay on the table.
"No, hardly any of it," confessed Betty, reddening as she remembered the
"Busy" sign.
But Madeline remarked briskly, "That's good. Neither have I. I don't feel
a bit like cramming, so I shall bluff. When father was studying art in
Paris, he knew a man who had been one of Napoleon's guards at St. Helena.
He was old and lame and half blind and stunningly homely then, and an
artist's model. He used to tell merry tales about what a tiger of a man--"
Madeline stopped short in the act of replacing the life of Napoleon on
the table and stared at Betty in unfeigned admiration.
"Betty Wales," she said at last, "you are certainly a splendid actress. I
never dreamed that you knew."
Betty's eyes followed Madeline's to the table, and then to "The Quiver,"
lying in full view where she had dropped it an hour before. There was one
chance in a thousand that Madeline meant something besides Eleanor's
story, and Betty resolved to make sure.
"Knew what, Madeline?" she asked steadily, trying not to blush but
feeling the tell-tale red spread over her cheeks in spite of all she
could do.
It was no use. Madeline picked up the magazine and flipped over the pages
carelessly till she came to Eleanor's story. "That," she said, holding it
out for Betty to see. Their eyes met, and at sight of Betty's frightened,
pleading face, Madeline's hand dropped to her side.
"I beg your pardon," she said quickly. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Betty.
I see now how it is. You didn't know before; you've just found out, and
when I came in you were mourning for your fallen idol. Shall I go?"
Betty stretched out a detaining hand. "No," she said, "tell me,--quick
before Helen comes,--how did you know?"
"Read it in 'The Quiver,' away back last fall, before Miss Watson's story
came out in the 'Argus.' It's been--oh, amusing, you know, to hear people
rave over her wonderful theme."
"Does any one else know?"
"I doubt it. 'The Quiver' isn't on sale up here. Father thinks it's
clever and he sends it to me. I suppose he knows the editor. He's always
knowing the editors of little, no-account magazines and having to sit up
nights to do them cover-designs or something; and then they send him
their magazines."
"But--I mean--you haven't told any one?" stammered Betty.
Madeline shook her head. "It wouldn't make a pretty story, do you think?"
"Madeline"--Betty's voice thrilled with earnestness--"did you ever think
you ought to tell?"
Madeline stared at Betty for a moment in silence. Then her gray eyes
twinkled. "You absurd little Puritan," she said, "is that what you're
bothering your head about? I know you don't want to tell. Why aren't you
satisfied to let matters take their course?"
"Because," Betty hesitated, "because if they take their course,--suppose,
Madeline, that somebody else knows and wants to tell? Ought I to
interfere with that?"
Madeline spread out her hands with a gesture that suggested helpless
resignation. "My dear, how should I know? You see in Bohemia we're all
honest--poor, but honest. We never have anything like this to settle
because we're all too busy enjoying life to have time to envy our
neighbors. But I think"--Madeline paused a minute--"I think if a man
stole a design and got, say a medal at the water-color exhibit, or a
prize at the Salon, I'd let him have it and I'd try to see that he kept
it in a conspicuous place, where he'd be sure to see it every day. I
think the sight of his medal would be his best medicine. If he was
anything of a man, he'd never want another of the same sort, and if he
was all cheat, he'd be found out soon enough without my help. So I'd give
him the benefit of the doubt."
"And you think that would be fair to the one who ought to have had the
medal?"
"If he was much of a man he didn't paint just for the medal," returned
Madeline quickly. "He painted because he couldn't help it,--because he
meant to make the most of himself,--and a medal more or less--what's that
to him?" She turned upon Betty suddenly. "Don't you see that the great
fault with the life here is that we think too little about living and too
much about getting? These societies and clubs and teams and committees--
they're not the best things in life; they're nothing, except what they
stand for in character and industry and talent. No, I shouldn't worry
because Eleanor Watson got into Dramatic Club, if that's what you mean,
and may get into other things because she cribbed a story. That very fact
will take all the fun out of it, unless she's beneath caring,--but she
isn't beneath caring," Madeline corrected herself swiftly. "No one with a
face like hers is beyond caring. It's the most beautiful face I ever
saw--and one of the saddest."
"Thank you very much, Madeline," said Betty, soberly. "I'm so glad I
could talk it over with you."
Madeline was never serious for long at a time. "I've been preaching
regular sermons," she said with a laugh. "The thing I don't understand is
why this editor of 'The Quiver' hasn't jumped on Miss Watson long ago.
Editors are always reading college magazines--hoping to discover a
genius, I suppose."
"Are they?" said Betty.
A tap sounded on the door.
"Don't worry, whatever else you do,--and hide your magazine," said
Madeline, and was off with a cheerful greeting for Helen Adams, who had
come back from her afternoon at T. Reed's crammed full of Napoleonic lore
and basket-ball news.
"Theresa had made a table of dates and events," said Helen eagerly. "I
copied it for you--it's lots of help. And Betty, she says the teams are
going to be chosen soon, and she is almost sure you will be on."
Madeline Ayres wondered idly, as she dressed for dinner, how Betty Wales
had come into possession of a four months' old magazine which was not to
be had at any library or book-store in Harding. Then, being a person
born, so she herself asserted, entirely without curiosity, she ceased
wondering. By the time dinner was over and she had related a budget of
her Napoleonic stories to a delighted group of anxious students, she had
actually forgotten all about Eleanor's affairs.