VICTORY OR DEFEAT
During the first part of her journey Betty busied herself with reading
over Mr. Blake's two letters and the lengthy replies that the editors had
composed. These last were as totally unlike as their writers, and Betty
thought that none of them hit the point so well as Madeline's
suggestions, and none was so cogent as the plea that Eleanor and Jim
between them had unconsciously made; but they might all help. From Mr.
Blake's two letters she decided that he must be a very queer sort of
person, and she devoutly hoped that his conversational style would be
less obscure than that of his first letter to Frances West; for it would
be dreadful, she thought, if she had to keep asking him what he meant.
"Well, I guess I shall just have to trust to luck and do the best I can
when the time comes," she decided, putting the letters back into her
suit-case with a little sigh. She admired Helen Adams's way of
deliberately preparing for a crisis, but in her own case it somehow never
seemed to work. For example, how could she plan what to say to Mr. Blake
until she knew what Mr. Blake would say to her? It would be bad enough to
try to answer him when the time came, without worrying about it now.
After a brief survey of the flying landscape, which looked uniformly cold
and uninviting under a leaden sky, and of her fellow-travelers, none of
whom promised any possibilities of amusement, Betty remembered that she
had intended to study all the way to New York, and accordingly extracted
Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" from her bag. For half an hour she read the
Knight's tale busily. But the adventures of Palamon and Arcite,
deciphered by means of assiduous reference to the glossary, were not
exciting; at the end of the half hour Betty's head drooped back against
the plush cushions, her eyes closed, and her book slid unheeded to the
floor. Regardless of all the elegant leisure that she had meant to secure
by a diligent five-hour attack upon "The Canterbury Tales," Betty had
fallen fast asleep.
Some time later the jolt of the halting train woke her. She glanced at
her watch--it was twelve o'clock--and looked out for the station sign.
But there was no station sign and no station; only snowy fields
stretching off to meet wooded hills on one side and the gorge of a frozen
river on the other. It had been a gray, sunless morning; now the air was
thick with snow, falling in big, lazily-moving flakes which seemed
undecided whether or not the journey they were making was worth their
while. All this Betty saw through small bare spots on the heavily frosted
car windows. She picked up "The Canterbury Tales" from the floor where
they had fallen, found her place and sat with her finger in the book,
anxiously waiting for the train to go on. But it did not start. The other
passengers also grew restless, and asked one another what could be the
trouble. There were plenty of guesses, but nobody knew until Betty
managed to stop a passing brakeman and asked him if they were going to be
late into New York.
"Oh, my, yes, ma'am," he assured her affably. "We're about an hour late
now, and there's no tellin' how long we'll stand here. There's been a big
blizzard and an awful freeze-up in the west--" he waved his hand at the
frosty window. "We do be gettin' a bit of it now ourselves, you see--and
the connections is all out of whack."
This was a cheerful prospect. The train was due in New York at half past
one. Allow half an hour for the present delay and it would be fully half
past three before Betty could reach Mr. Blake's office. Besides, she had
brought nothing to eat except some sweet chocolate, for she had planned
to get lunch in New York. It was most provoking. She settled herself once
more, a cake of chocolate to nibble in one hand and her book in the
other, resolved to endure the rest of the journey with what stoicism she
might.
Finally, after having exhausted the entire half hour that she had allowed
it, the train started with a puff and a wheeze, and ambled on toward its
destination, with frequent brief pauses to get its breath or to
accommodate the connections that were "all out of whack," and a final
long and agonizing wait in the yards. That was the last straw--to be so
near the goal and yet helplessly stranded just out of reach. Wishing to
verify her own calculations, Betty leaned forward and asked a
friendly-looking, gray-haired woman in the seat ahead if she knew just
how long it would take to go from the Forty-second Street station to
Fulton Street.
The woman considered. "Not less than three-quarters of an hour, I should
say, unless you took a Subway express to the bridge, and changed there.
Then perhaps you might do it in half an hour."
Betty thanked her and sat back, watch in hand, counting the minutes and
wondering what she would better do if she had to stay in New York all
night. In spite of some disadvantages, it would be much the best plan,
she decided, to go to her cousins. But never thinking of any such
contingency as the one that had arisen, she had left her address book at
Harding, and she had a very poor memory for numbers. She remembered
vaguely one hundred twenty-one, and was sure that cousin Will Banning
lived on East Seventy-second Street. But was his number one twenty-one,
or was it three hundred forty-something, and Cousin Alice's one twenty-
one on One Hundred and Second Street? Was that east or west, and was it
Cousin Alice's address before or after she moved last? The more Betty
thought, and the more certain it seemed that she could not reach Mr.
Blake's office by any route before five o'clock, the more confused she
became. She had never been about in New York alone, and she had a horror
of going in the rapidly falling dusk from one number to another in a
strange city, and then perhaps not finding her cousins in the end. Then
there was nothing to do but stay at a hotel. Luckily Betty did remember
very distinctly the name of the one that Nan often stopped at alone. She
leaned forward again and asked the lady in front to direct her to it.
"Yes, I can do that," said the lady brightly, "or if you like I can take
you to it. I'm going there myself. Aren't you a Harding girl?"
Betty assented.
"And I'm the matron at the Davidson," said the gray-haired lady.
"You are!" Betty's tone expressed infinite relief. "And I may really come
with you? I'm so glad. I never went to a hotel alone." And she explained
briefly why she was obliged to do so now.
The snow was still falling softly when they finally reached New York and
boarded a crowded car to ride the few blocks to their hotel. It seemed
that Betty's new friend had come down to visit her son, who was ill at a
hospital. She helped Betty through the trying ordeal of registering and
getting a room, and they went to the cafe together for a little supper.
Then she hurried off to her son, and Betty was left to her own devices.
She despatched a special-delivery letter to Helen, explaining why she
could not take the sleeper--Helen had the impression that Betty had gone
to New York to have her hair waved and was ashamed to confess to such
frivolity. Then she yawned for a while over "The Canterbury Tales," and
went to bed early, so as to be in perfect trim for the next day's
interview. She intended to see Mr. Blake as early as possible in the
morning and take a noon train for Harding.
"And I do hope there isn't going to be a blizzard here," she thought, as
she fell asleep to the angry howling of the wind, which dashed the snow,
now frozen, into tiny, icy globules, against her window panes.
But her hope was not destined to be realized. When she woke later than
usual the next morning, with a queer feeling of not knowing where she was
nor what had happened, the storm was still raging furiously. The street
beneath her windows was piled high with impassable drifts, which were
getting higher every minute, while on the opposite side a narrow strip of
roadway was as clean as if it had been swept with the proverbial new
broom. It was snowing so hard that Betty could not see to the corner of
the street, and the wind was blowing a gale.
"I don't care," said Betty philosophically. "Here goes for seeing New
York in a blizzard. I've always wanted to know what it was like." And she
began making energetic preparations for breakfast.
When she got down-stairs she found a hasty note from her friend of the
day before, explaining that her son was worse and she had gone as early
as possible to the hospital. So Betty breakfasted in solitary state on
rolls and coffee,--for her exchequer was beginning to suffer from the
unexpected demands that she had made upon it,--paid her bill, and bag in
hand sallied forth to meet the storm. Before she had plowed her way to
the nearest corner, she decided that a blizzard in New York was no joke.
While she waited there in the teeth of the wind, bracing herself against
it as it blew her hair in her eyes, whipped her skirt about her ankles,
and swept the snow, sharp and cutting as needle-points, pitilessly
against her cheeks, she was more than half minded to give up seeing Mr.
Blake altogether and go straight to the station. But it was not Betty's
way to give up. She brushed back her flying hair, held up her muff as
protection against the wind, and when her car finally arrived, tumbled on
with a sigh of relief and then a laugh all to herself at the absurdity of
the whole situation.
"Mr. Blake will want to laugh too when he sees me," she thought, "and
perhaps that will be a good beginning."
In this cheerful mood Betty presently arrived at the door of "The Quiver"
office. She made a wry face as she shook the snow out of her furs,
straightened her hat and smoothed her hair. It was too bad to have to go
in looking like a fright, after all the pains she had taken to wear her
most becoming clothes, so as to look, and to feel, as impressive as
possible. As a matter of fact, she had never looked prettier than when,
having done her best to repair the ravages of the wind, she stood waiting
a moment longer to get her breath and decide how she should ask for Mr.
Blake and what she should say when she was summoned into his awful
presence. Her cheeks were glowing with the cold, her eyes bright with
excitement, and her hair blown into damp little curls that were far more
becoming than any more studied arrangement would have been. Mr. Richard
Blake would indeed be difficult to please if he failed to find her
charming.
She gave a final pat to her hair, loosened her furs, and knocked boldly
on the office door. There was no answer. Betty had reached out her hand
to knock again when it occurred to her that people who came to her
father's office walked right in. So she carefully opened the door and
stepping just inside, closed it again after her. She found herself in a
big, bare room, with three or four desks near the long windows and a
table by the door. Only one desk was occupied--the one in the farthest
corner of the room. The young man sitting behind it--he was very young
indeed, smooth-shaven, with expressionless, heavy-lidded eyes, and a
mouth that drooped cynically at the corners,--barely glanced at his
visitor, and then dropped his eyes once more to the papers on his desk.
Betty waited a moment, while he wrote rapidly on the margin of one sheet
with a blue pencil, and then, seeing that he apparently intended to go on
reading and writing indefinitely, she gave a deprecating little cough.
"Is Mr. Richard Blake in?" she asked.
"Yes," answered the young man behind the desk, without so much as
glancing in her direction.
"Can--may I see him, please?"
"You can," returned the young man, emphasizing the word can in what Betty
thought an extremely disagreeable way.
He made no move to go and get Mr. Blake, and Betty, knowing nothing else
to do, awaited his pleasure in silence.
"Is it so very important as all this?" asked the young man at last,
tossing aside his papers and coming toward Betty with disconcerting
suddenness. "You know," he went on, "I can't possibly read it to-day. I'm
desperately busy. I shall put it in a pigeon-hole and I shan't look at it
for weeks perhaps. So I can't see that it was worth your while to come
out in a storm like this to bring it to me."
"Are you Mr. Richard Blake?" demanded Betty, wishing to get at least one
thing definitely settled.
The young man nodded. "I am," he said, "but pray how did you arrive at
your conclusion--so late?"
"Because," said Betty promptly, "you talk exactly as your letters sound."
"That's interesting," said the young man. "How do they sound?"
"I mean," said Betty, blushing at her own temerity, "that they are hard
to understand."
The young man appeared to be considering this remark with great
seriousness. "That implies," he began at last very slowly, "that you must
have had either a letter of acceptance or a personal note of refusal from
'The Quiver.' So perhaps your story is worth coming out in a blizzard to
bring after all. Anyway, since you have brought it out in a blizzard,
I'll just glance over it, if you care to wait."
Betty stared at Mr. Richard Blake in growing bewilderment. "I think you
must have mistaken me for some one else," she said at last. "You don't
know me at all, Mr. Blake, and you never wrote to me. The letter that I
saw was written to some one else."
"Indeed! And am I also mistaken in supposing that you have brought me a
story for 'The Quiver'?"
"I brought you a story for 'The Quiver'!" gasped Betty. Then all at once
she took in the situation and laughed so merrily that even the blase,
young editor of "The Quiver" was forced to smile a little in sympathy. "I
see now," she said, when she could speak. "You thought I was a writer--an
authoress. I suppose that most of the people who come to see an editor
are authors, aren't they?"
"Yes," said the young man gravely. "The only possible reason that has
ever brought a pretty young woman to 'The Quiver' office is the vain hope
that because I have seen that she is pretty, I shall like her story
better than I otherwise would."
"Well," said Betty, too intent upon coming to the point to be either
annoyed or amused by Mr. Blake's frank implication, "I haven't come about
a story. Or--that is, I have too. I came to see you about Eleanor
Watson's story--the one that is so like 'The Lost Hope' in the November
'Quiver.'"
"Indeed!" The young man's face grew suddenly sombre again. "Won't you
have a seat?" He led the way back to his desk, placing a chair for Betty
beside his own. "Let us make a fair start," he said, as he took his seat.
"You mean the story that was copied from 'The Quiver,' I suppose."
"Yes." Betty hesitated, wondering if she was being led into some damaging
confession. But she had not come to palter with the truth. "I'm afraid
there is no doubt that it was copied from 'The Quiver,' Mr. Blake."
"Did you know that it was a better story than the one in 'The Quiver'?"
[Illustration: "LET US MAKE A FAIR START," HE SAID]
Betty's eyes sparkled with pleasure. "Do you really think so?" she asked
eagerly. "I'm so glad, because I did, too, only I was afraid I might be
prejudiced. But you wouldn't be." Betty stopped in confusion, for Mr.
Blake had abruptly turned his back upon her, and was staring out the
nearest window at the mist of flying snow.
There was a long pause, or at least it seemed oppressively long to Betty,
who had no idea what it meant. Then "To whom have I the honor of
speaking?" asked Mr. Blake in the queer, sarcastic tone that had annoyed
Betty earlier in the interview.
As briefly as possible Betty explained who she was, and why she had come
as special envoy from the editors. She was relieved when Mr. Blake turned
back from his survey of the landscape with another faint suggestion of a
smile flickering about his grim mouth.
"You relieve me immensely, Miss Wales," he said. "I was quite sure you
were not an editor of the 'Argus,' because you seemed so totally
unfamiliar with the machinery of literary ventures; and so I supposed, or
at least I feared, that Miss Watson had come to speak for herself."
Betty flushed angrily. "Why, Mr. Blake, do I look--"
"No, you don't in the least," Mr. Blake interrupted her hastily. "But
unfortunately, you must admit, appearances are sometimes deceitful. Now
suppose that your friend Miss Watson had come herself. Does she look or
act like the sort of person that she has shown herself to be?"
Betty smiled brightly. "Of course not," she said. "She doesn't at all.
But then she isn't that sort of person. I mean she never will be again.
If she was, I can tell you that I shouldn't be here. It's just because
she's so splendid when she thinks in time and tries to be nice, and
because she hasn't any mother and never had half a chance that I'm sorry
for her now. And besides, it's certainly punishment enough to see that
story in the 'Argus,' and know she didn't write it, and to get into
Dramatic Club partly because of it, and so have that spoiled for her too,
and not to be able to let her family be one bit proud of her. Don't you
see that an open disgrace wouldn't mean any more punishment? It would
only make it harder for her to be fair and square again. It isn't as if
she didn't care. She hates herself for it, Mr. Blake, I know she does."
Betty paused for breath and Mr. Richard Blake took the opportunity to
speak. "What, may I ask, is the Dramatic Club?"
"Oh, a splendid literary club that some of the nicest girls in college
belong to," explained Betty impatiently, feeling that the question was
not much to the point.
"Do you belong to it?" demanded Mr. Blake.
"Oh, no," said Betty, with a laugh. "I'm not bright enough. I hate to
stick to things long enough to learn them."
"That's unfortunate, because I was hoping you were a member," said Mr.
Blake, inconsequently. "But to return to the story, do you think that
Miss Watson was so very much to blame for copying it?"
"Of course I do," said Betty, indignantly, wondering what Mr. Richard
Blake could possibly be driving at now.
"But consider," he pursued. "Miss Watson is a very clever girl, isn't
she?"
"Yes, indeed," assented Betty, eagerly.
"She finds this story--an unusual story, rather badly written, with a
very weak ending. It strikes her as having possibilities. She puts on the
needed touches,--the finish, the phrasing and an ending that is almost a
stroke of genius. Isn't the story hers?"
Betty waited a moment. "No, Mr. Blake," she said decidedly, "it isn't.
Those little changes don't make any difference. She took it from 'The
Quiver.'"
"But how about Shakespeare's plays? Every one of them has a borrowed
plot. Shakespeare improved it, added incidents and characters, fused the
whole situation in the divine fire of his genius. But some characters and
the general outline of the plot he borrowed. We don't say he stole them.
We don't call him a plagiarist, Miss Wales."
"I don't know about that," said Betty, doubtfully. "I never understood
about Shakespeare's plots; but I suppose it was different in those days.
Lots of things were. And besides he was a regular genius, and I know that
what he did hasn't anything to do with Eleanor. She oughtn't to have
copied a story. I don't see how she could do it; but I wish you could
feel that it was right to overlook it."
"Miss Wales," said Mr. Blake, abruptly, "I'm going to tell you something.
I don't care a snap of my finger for Miss Watson. I don't really believe
she's worth much consideration, though her having a friend who will go
around New York for her on a day like this seems to indicate the
contrary. But what I'm particularly interested in is the moral tone of
Harding College. That's a big thing, a thing worth thought and effort and
personal sacrifice to maintain. Now tell me frankly, Miss Wales, how
would the Harding girls as a whole look at this matter?"
"If you knew any," returned Betty, swiftly, "you wouldn't ask. Of course
they'd feel just the way I do."
"Perhaps even the way I do?"
"Y-yes," admitted Betty, grudgingly. "But I believe I could bring them
round," she added with a mischievous smile.
"Then how did Miss Watson happen to do such a thing?"
"Because," explained Betty, earnestly, "she doesn't feel the way the rest
of the girls do about such things. I'm awfully fond of her, but I noticed
the difference almost the first time I met her. Last year she--oh, there
was nothing like this," added Betty, quickly, "and after she saw how the
other girls felt, she changed. But I suppose she couldn't change all at
once, and so she did this. But she isn't a typical Harding girl, indeed
she isn't, Mr. Blake."
"And yet she is a member of the Dramatic Club," said Mr. Blake, taking up
a telegram from his desk.
"Don't you suppose she wishes she wasn't?" inquired Betty.
Mr. Blake made no answer. "Well, Miss Wales," he said, at last, "I fancy
we've talked as much about this as is profitable. I'm very glad to have
seen you, but I'm sorry that you found us in such disorder. The office
boy is stuck in the drifts over in Brooklyn, and my assistant and the
stenographer are snowed up in Harlem. I only hope you won't get snowed in
anywhere between here and Harding. You're going back to-day, you said?"
Betty nodded. "And I should like--"
"To be sure," Mr. Blake took her up. "You would like to know my answer.
Well, Miss Wales, I really think you deserve it, too; but as it happens,
I find I'm going up to Harding next week, and I want to look over the
ground for myself,--see what I think about the moral tone of things, you
know."
"You're coming up to Harding!" said Betty, ruefully. "Then I needn't have
come down here at all."
"Oh, but I didn't know it till to-day," explained Mr. Blake, soothingly.
"I got the telegram while I was breakfasting this morning. I can't
telegraph my answer, because the wires are all down, so you might tell
them I've written, or you might post my answer for me in Harding. I have
the greatest confidence in your ability to get through the drifts, Miss
Wales."
"Are you"--Betty hesitated--"are you coming up about this, Mr. Blake?"
For answer he passed her the telegram. It was an invitation from the
newly-elected president of the Dramatic Club--Beatrice Egerton had gone
out of office at midyears--to lecture before an open meeting of the
society a week from the following Saturday.
"Goodness!" said Betty, returning the telegram. "I didn't know you were a
lecturer too, Mr. Blake."
"Oh, I'm not much of one," returned Mr. Blake, easily. "I suspect that
the man they had engaged couldn't come, and Miss Stuart--you know her, I
presume--who's an old friend of mine, suggested me as a forlorn hope. You
see," he added, "'The Quiver' is a new thing and doesn't go everywhere
yet, as your friend Miss Watson was clever enough to know; but before I
began to edit it, I used to write dramatic criticisms for the newspapers.
Some people didn't like my theories about the stage and the right kind of
plays and the right way of acting them; so it amuses them now to hear me
lecture and to think to themselves 'How foolish!' 'How absurd!' as I
talk."
"I see," laughed Betty. "I'm afraid I don't know much about dramatic
criticism."
"Well, it doesn't amount to very much," returned Mr. Blake, genially.
"That's why I stopped doing it. Shall you come to hear me lecture, Miss
Wales?"
Betty laughed again. "I shall if I can get an invitation," she said. "I
suppose it's an invitation affair."
"And Miss Watson will be there?"
Betty nodded. "Unless, of course, she knows that you are the editor of
'The Quiver.'"
"She won't," said Mr. Blake, "unless you or the editors of the 'Argus'
tell her. Miss Stuart doesn't know, and she is probably the only other
person up there who's ever heard of me. Good-bye, Miss Wales, until next
week, Saturday."
Betty got her bag from the elevator boy, into whose keeping she had
trustfully confided it, and went out into the snow. She was very much
afraid that she had not done her full duty. Dorothy had told her to be
sure to pin Mr. Blake down to something definite. Well, she had tried to,
but she had not succeeded. As she thought over the interview, she could
not remember that she had said anything very much to the point. It
seemed, indeed, as if they had talked mostly about other things; and yet
toward the last Mr. Blake's manner had been much more cordial, if that
meant anything. Anyway it was all over and done with now, and quite
useless. Dorothy and Beatrice and Frances could do their own talking next
week. And--she had stood on the corner for ten minutes and still there
was no car in sight. A few had crawled past on their way to the Battery,
but none had come back. It was frightfully cold. Betty stamped her feet,
slapped her arms, warmed first one aching ear and then the other. Still
no car. A diminutive newsboy had stopped by her side, and in despair she
appealed to him.
"Isn't there some other way to get up town?" she asked. "These cars must
have stopped running, and I've got to get to the Central station."
"Take de L to de bridge and den de Subway. Dat ain't snowed in,"
suggested the little newsboy. "C'n I carry your bag, lady?"
It was only a few blocks, but it seemed at least a mile to Betty, too
cold and tired to enjoy the tussle with the wind any longer. When she had
stumbled up the long flight of stairs and dropped herself and her bag in
the nearest corner of the waiting train, she could scarcely have taken
another step.
The Central station, like the whole city, wore a dejected, deserted
appearance. Yes, there would be a train for Harding some time, a guard
assured Betty. He could not say when it would start. Oh, it had been due
to start at ten-thirty, and it was now exactly twelve-five. There was
nothing to do but wait. So Betty waited, dividing her time between "The
Canterbury Tales"--she had not money enough to dare to waste any on a
magazine--and a woman, who was also waiting for the belated ten-thirty.
Her baby was ill, she told Betty; she feared it would die before she
could get to it. Betty's own weariness and discouragement sank into
insignificance beside her companion's trouble, and in trying to reassure
her she became quite cheerful herself.
At half past eleven that night Madeline Ayres heard something bang
against her window and looked out to find Betty Wales standing in the
drifts, snowballing the front windows of the Belden House with an
impartiality born of despair.
"I thought I should never wake any one up," she said, when Madeline had
unlocked the door and let her into the grateful warmth of the hall. "The
bell wouldn't ring and I was so afraid out there, and I've been ten hours
coming from New York, and I'm starved, Madeline."
When, after having enjoyed a delicious, if not particularly digestible
supper of coffee and Welsh rarebit in Madeline's room, Betty crept softly
to her own, and turned up the gas just far enough to undress by, Helen
woke and sat straight up in bed.
"Why, Betty!" she said, "I'm awfully glad you've come. We all worried so
about you. But--why, Betty, your hair isn't waved a bit. Didn't you have
it waved?"
"Helen, were you ever in New York in a blizzard?" enquired Betty, busily
unlacing her shoe-strings.
"No," said Helen. "Did it take out the curl?"
"Would it take out the curl!" repeated Betty scornfully. "It would take
out the curliest curl that ever was in thirty seconds. It was perfectly
awful. But, Helen, don't say anything about it, but I didn't go to New
York for that."
"Oh!" said Helen.
The next day Betty woke up with a splitting headache and a sore throat.
The day after the doctor came and called it a mild case of grippe. It was
a week before she felt like playing basket-ball, and that very day the
teams were chosen and Babbie had the position as sub-centre that Betty
had coveted. One thing she gained by being ill. By the time she was able
to be up and out even Mary Brooks, with her "satiable curiosity," had
forgotten to ask why she went to New York.