A DISTINGUISHED GUEST
"It's going to be lots of fun. They can't any of them act at all, of
course, and their plays are the wildest things, Babe says. She and Bob
went once last winter. This one is called 'The Hand of Fate'--doesn't
that sound thrilling? I say, Betty, I think you might be a true sport and
come along. You know you don't care a straw about 'The Tendencies of the
Modern Drama.'"
Katherine Kittredge sat cross-legged on Betty's couch, with Betty's
entire collection of pillows piled comfortably behind her back, while she
held forth with eloquent enthusiasm upon the charms of the "ten-twenty-
thirty" cent show which was giving its final performance that evening at
the Harding opera house.
"I don't know anything about them, so how can I tell whether I care or
not?" retorted Betty, who was sitting before her desk engaged in a
desperate effort to bring some semblance of order out of the chaos that
littered its shelf and pigeon-holes.
"Well, even if you do care, you can probably read it all up in some
book," continued Katherine. "And, besides," she added briskly. "you would
get a lot of points to-night. Isn't 'The Hand of Fate' a modern drama, I
should like to know?"
Betty gave a sudden joyous exclamation. "Why, I'm finding all the things
I've lost, Katherine. Here's my pearl pin that I thought the sneak
thieves must have stolen. I remember now that I put it into an envelope
to take down to be cleaned. And,"--joy changing abruptly to despair,--
"here's my last week's French exercise, that I hunted and hunted for, and
finally thought I must have given to some one to hand in for me. Do you
suppose mademoiselle will ever believe me?"
Katherine chuckled. "She would if she knew your habits better. Now
listen, Betty. Nita's coming to-night, and Babe and Babbie--Bob would,
only she doesn't dare cut the lecture when she's just gone into Dramatic
Club--and Rachel and Roberta, and I've about half persuaded Mary Brooks.
We're going to sit in the bald-headed row and clap all the hero's tenor
solos and sob when the heroine breaks his heart, and hiss the villain.
How's that for a nice little stunt?"
"I just love ten-cent plays," admitted Betty, obviously weakening.
"Then come on," urged Katherine.
Betty shook her head. "No, I don't believe I will this time. You see
Emily asked me to the lecture, and I accepted."
"Well, so did most of us accept," argued Katherine. "You needn't think we
weren't asked. Emily won't care. Just give your ticket away, so there
won't be too many vacant seats, and come along."
"But you see," explained Betty, "I really do want to hear the lecture,
and I can go off on a lark with you girls almost any time."
"I never knew you to be so keen about a lecture before," said Katherine
indignantly. "I believe Helen Adams is turning you into a regular dig."
"Don't worry," laughed Betty. "You see one reason why I--"
There was a tap on the door, and without waiting for an answer to her
knock Eleanor Watson entered. She was apparently in the best of spirits;
there was no hint in face or manner of the weariness and nervous
depression that had been so evident at the time of Jim's visit.
"Have you both tickets for Mr. Blake's lecture?" she asked with a
careless little nod for Katherine. "I have one left and Beatrice has one,
and she sent me out hunting for victims. I've asked you once already,
haven't I, Betty?"
"Yes, you did," said Betty, "but Emily asked me before that."
"And I'm going to 'The Hand of Fate,'" said Katherine stiffly, picking up
a book from the table and turning over its pages with an air of studied
indifference. She had no intention of being patronized by Eleanor Watson.
"But she's given away her ticket, Eleanor," said Betty pacifically, "so
you needn't worry about empty seats."
"Oh, we're not worrying," returned Eleanor loftily. "The subject is so
attractive"--Katherine winked at Betty from behind the shelter of her
book. "And then Miss Stuart knows Mr. Blake, and she says that he's a
splendid speaker. Miss Stuart is ill to-day, so Miss Ferris is going to
have Mr. Blake up to dinner. Of course we Hilton House girls are
dreadfully excited about that."
"Of course," said Betty, with a little gasp of dismay which neither of
her friends seemed to notice.
"Miss Ferris has asked the Dramatic Club girls to sit at her table," went
on Eleanor impressively, "and she wants me to be on her other side, right
opposite Mr. Blake. Just think of that!"
"Splendid!" said Betty, feeling like a traitor. And yet what else could
she say, and what difference would it make, since Eleanor did not know
that Mr. Blake was the editor of "The Quiver," and Mr. Blake, in the
general confusion of introductions, would probably not catch Eleanor's
name.
"I hope you know a good deal more about the tendencies of the modern
drama than I do," said Katherine drily, "if you're in as deep as all
that." She slid off the couch with a jerk. "Good-bye, Betty. Are you sure
you won't change your mind?"
"I guess not this time, Katherine," said Betty, following her guest to
the door.
Eleanor went off too, after a moment, and Betty was left free to bestow
her undivided attention upon the rearrangement of her desk. But even
several "finds" quite as important and surprising as the pearl pin and
the French theme did not serve to concentrate her thoughts upon her own
affairs. The absorbing question was, what did Mr. Blake mean to do, and
how would a dinner with Eleanor in the seat opposite affect his
intentions? He had said that he wasn't interested in Eleanor, but he
couldn't help being influenced by what she said and did, if he knew who
she was. For the hundredth time Betty questioned, did Eleanor deserve the
consideration that was being asked for her? Was it fair to set aside the
gay, self-absorbed Eleanor of to-day in favor of the clinging, repentant
Eleanor of the week before? Why, yes, she thought, it must be fair to
judge a person at her best, if you wanted her to be her best. She sighed
over the perplexities of life, and then she sighed again, because of her
tiresome desk and the Saturday afternoon that was slipping away so fast.
It was half-past four already, and at five she had promised to meet
Madeline Ayres in the college library for a walk before dinner.
She put the papers that she had sorted into their proper pigeon-holes,
swept the rest of the litter into a pile for future consideration, and
made a hasty toilette, reflecting that she should have to dress again
anyway for the lecture. As she put on her hat, she noticed the ruffled
plume and smoothed it as best she could. "That blizzard!" she thought
ruefully. Reminded again of Mr. Blake, she wondered if he had taken an
early train from New York. If so he must have reached Harding long ago.
Perhaps he was closeted with the editors--Frances hadn't heard from him
about an interview when Betty saw her last. Or perhaps he was
investigating the moral tone of the college. Betty wondered smilingly how
he would go about it, and looked up to find Mr. Richard Blake himself
strolling slowly toward her from the direction of the front gateway. At
the same instant he saw her and came quickly forward, his hat in one
hand, the other stretched out for Betty to take.
"So you didn't get stuck in the snow," he said, gravely.
"Not so deep that I had to stay stuck for a week," laughed Betty.
"Haven't the office-boy and the stenographer got out yet?"
"Yes, but they didn't have so far to go," returned Mr. Blake, calmly.
"May I walk on with you?"
"Of course," agreed Betty, "but you weren't going my way, were you?"
Mr. Blake smiled his slight, cynical smile. "To tell the truth, Miss
Wales, I haven't the least idea which way I am going--or which way I
ought to be. I'm supposed to turn up for five o'clock tea with one Miss
Raymond, who lives at a place called the Davidson House. My friend Miss
Stuart is ill, and I escaped the escort of a committee by wickedly
hinting that I knew my way about."
"Well," said Betty, "you were going the right way when I met you. The
Davidson is straight down at the other end of that row of brick houses."
"Thank you," said Mr. Blake, making no move to follow Betty's directions.
"I detest teas, and I'm going to be as late as I dare. But perhaps I
shall be in your way."
Betty explained that she was bound for the college library to meet a
friend.
"Ah," said Mr. Blake, "I think I should like to see that library. You
know I have theories about libraries as well as about plays. Is this a
nice one?"
"Of course," said Betty. "Everything at Harding is nice. Don't you think
so?"
Mr. Blake shook his head uncertainly.
"I hardly feel competent to speak of everything yet, Miss Wales."
"Well, how about the moral tone?" inquired Betty demurely. She had a
feeling that more direct questions would not help Eleanor's cause.
Mr. Blake shook his head again. "I haven't gone very far with that yet,
Miss Wales. I mean to make them talk about it at the tea."
They had climbed the stairs to the library and Betty pushed back the
swinging doors and stepped inside, wondering vaguely whether she should
call the librarian or take Mr. Blake from alcove to alcove herself, when
Madeline Ayres looked up from her book, and catching sight of them
started forward with a haste and enthusiasm which the occasion, Betty
thought, hardly warranted.
"I'm afraid I don't know enough about the books to take you around," she
was saying to Mr. Blake, when Madeline descended precipitately upon them
and, paying not the slightest attention to Betty, said in a loud whisper
to Mr. Blake, "Dick, come outside this minute, where we can shake hands."
"Come on, Miss Wales," whispered Mr. Blake. "It will be worth seeing,"
and Betty, not knowing what else to do, followed him into the hall.
"Why, Dick Blake," Madeline went on enthusiastically, "you don't know how
good it seems to see one of the old Paris crowd again. Have you forgotten
how we used to hunt chocolate shops together, and do the Latin Quarter at
night, and teach my cousins American manners?"
"Hardly," laughed Mr. Blake. "We were a pair of young wretches in those
days, Madeline. But I thought you were all for art and Bohemia. What on
earth are you doing up here?"
"Completing my education," returned Madeline calmly. "The family suddenly
discovered that I was dreadfully ignorant. What are you doing up here
yourself, Dick?"
"Helping to complete your education," returned Mr. Blake serenely. "Is it
possible that the fame of my to-night's lecture hasn't reached you,
Madeline?"
Madeline laughed merrily. "To think that we've come to this, Dick. Why, I
never dreamed that was you. I've been refusing tickets to that lecture
all day--I abhor lectures--but of course I shall go now." She turned to
Betty. "Why didn't you tell us that you knew Mr. Blake, Betty?"
Betty blushed guiltily. "Why, I--because I don't know him much," she
stammered.
"To be exact, Madeline," interposed Mr. Blake, "this is only our second
meeting, and of course Miss Wales didn't want to stand for me in the
critical eyes of the Harding public."
"Well, but--" Madeline looked from one to the other sharply. "Dick, whom
are you writing for now?" she demanded.
"For myself. I'm running a magazine."
"'The Quiver'?"
Mr. Blake nodded. "Yes, have you seen it? I've sent one or two numbers to
your father on the chance of their finding him in some far corner of the
earth."
"So that's it," said Madeline enigmatically, ignoring the question. "Now
I understand. I--well, the point is, Dick, do whatever Betty Wales wants
you to. You may depend upon it that she knows what she's about.
Everything she tells you will be on the straight."
Mr. Richard Blake threw back his head and laughed a hearty, boyish laugh.
"You haven't changed a bit, Madeline," he said. "You expect me to be your
humble chessman and no questions asked, exactly as you did in the old
days. I can't promise what you want now," he added soberly, "but I
heartily subscribe to what you say about Miss Wales. See here"--he
reached hastily for his watch--"I was going to a tea, wasn't I? Do I dare
to cut it out?"
Betty hesitated and looked at Madeline, who shook her head decidedly.
"Never. This isn't Bohemia, you know. Run along, Dick. I'll see you
to-night if I can get a chance, and if not you'll surely be round at
Easter?"
"Rather," said Mr. Richard Blake, striding hurriedly down the hall.
Madeline watched him go with a smile. "Nice boy," she said laconically.
"We used to have jolly times together, when he was Paris correspondent
for the something or other in New York. Have we time to take our walk,
Betty?"
"Madeline," said Betty solemnly, "you are a jewel--a perfect jewel. Do
you think he'll do it?"
"Of course," said Madeline coolly. "He'll keep you on tenter-hooks as
long as he can, but his bark is always worse than his bite, and he'll
come round in the end."
"Oh, I hope so," said Betty anxiously.
Madeline smiled lazily down at her. "It's no good worrying, anyhow," she
said, "You can't pursue him to his tea. Besides, ten minutes before you
met him you'd almost decided that it would be better to let the whole
thing out, and be done with it."
"Madeline," demanded Betty in amazement, "how do you guess things?"
"Never mind how," laughed Madeline. "Come and dress for the lecture."
Betty answered Helen's eager questions about the discovery of the pearl
pin in absent-minded monosyllables. After all, things were turning out
better than she had hoped. Indirectly at least the trip to New York had
counted in Eleanor's favor. She need not reproach herself any longer with
carelessness in letting Madeline into the secret, and she could feel that
it was not for nothing that she had lost her chances of being on the
"sub" team.
As she entered the lecture hall that evening with Helen and Alice Waite,
Dorothy King, who was standing by the ticket taker, accosted her.
"I wanted to tell you that Christy is coming back before long," she said.
Having drawn her aside on that flimsy excuse, Dorothy grew suddenly
earnest.
"What's he going to do, Betty?" she demanded.
"Why, I don't know," said Betty, blushing at thought of Madeline, "any
more than you do. Haven't you seen him?"
"No," explained Dorothy. "He wrote to say that it would be wasting time
to argue any more--that he was sure he understood our point of view from
you, and now he meant to see for himself and decide."
"Then I suppose he'll tell Miss West tonight."
"We hoped he'd told you this afternoon."
"How did you know I'd seen him?" inquired Betty evasively.
"Eleanor Watson told me that she saw you together in the library."
Betty gave a little cry of dismay, then checked it. "But she doesn't know
who he is," she said.
"Yes, she does know now," said Dorothy quickly.
"How?"
"He told her himself. He was at dinner this evening with Miss Ferris, you
know. Eleanor sat up at his end of the table looking like a perfect
queen, and she talked awfully well too--she is certainly a very brilliant
girl. He talked to her a good deal during dinner and as we were leaving
the table he asked Miss Ferris again who she was."
"What did he say when she told him?"
"He just said 'Indeed!' in that queer, drawling voice of his. Afterward
Miss Ferris made coffee for us, and what do you suppose he did? He began
to ask everybody in the room about the code of honor at the college."
"Well?"
"After one or two of the girls had said what they thought, he turned
straight to Eleanor Watson. 'And you, Miss Watson,' he said, 'what do you
think? Is this fine moral feeling strong enough to stand a strain? Would
you be willing to risk one thoroughly dishonest student not to overthrow
it?' She got awfully white, and I could see her cup shake in her hand,
but she said very quietly, 'I quite agree with what has already been
said, Mr. Blake.'"
"And then?"
"Then he said 'Indeed!' again. But when the girls got up to go and he bid
them each good-bye, he managed to keep Eleanor on some pretext about
wanting to finish an argument that they'd begun at dinner. Miss Ferris
kept me to know about a Hilton House girl who was down at the infirmary
when I was and finally had to be sent home; and as we stood talking at
the other side of the room, I distinctly heard Mr. Blake say, 'The editor
of "The Quiver," Miss Watson.'"
"Did Miss Ferris hear it too?"
"Probably not. Anyway it wouldn't mean anything to her. The next minute
Eleanor Watson was gone, and then I went too. Betty, we must run back
this minute. He's going to begin."
As far as her information about "The Tendencies of the Modern Drama" was
concerned, Betty Wales might quite as well have been enjoying herself at
"The Hand of Fate." She sat very still, between two girls she had never
seen before, and apparently listened intently to the speaker. As a matter
of fact, she heard scarcely a word that he said. Her thoughts and her
eyes were fixed on Eleanor, who was sitting with Beatrice Egerton, well
up on the middle aisle. Like Betty, she seemed to be absorbed in
following the thread of Mr. Blake's argument. She laughed at his jokes,
applauded his clever stories. But there was a hot flush on her cheeks and
a queer light in her eyes that bore unmistakable evidence to the struggle
going on beneath her forced attention.
After the lecture Betty was waiting near the door for Helen and Alice,
when Eleanor brushed past her.
"Are you going home, Eleanor?" she asked timidly, merely for the sake of
saying something friendly.
Eleanor turned back impatiently. "You're the tenth person who's asked me
that," she said. "Why shouldn't I be?"
"Why, no reason at all--" began Betty. But Eleanor had vanished.
Once in her own room she locked the door and gave free rein to the fury
of passion and remorse that held her in its thrall. Jim's visit had
brought out all her nobler impulses. She had caught a glimpse of herself
as she would have looked in his eyes, and the scorn of her act that she
had felt at intervals all through the fall and winter--that had prevented
any real enjoyment of her stolen honors and kept her from writing home
about them,--had deepened into bitter self-abnegation. But Jim had come
and gone. He still believed in her, for he did not know what she had
done. Nobody knew. Nobody would ever know now. It was absurd to fear
discovery after all these months. So Eleanor had argued, throwing care
and remorse to the winds, and resolving to forget the past and enjoy life
to the full.
Then, just at the moment of greatest triumph, had come Mr. Blake's
startling announcement. He had not told her what he had done or meant to
do, nor how he had found out about the story, nor who shared his secret;
and Eleanor had been too amazed and frightened to ask. Now, in the
solitude of her room, she drew her own swift conclusions. It was a plot
against her peace of mind, his coming up to lecture. Who had arranged it?
Who indeed but Betty Wales? She knew Mr. Blake intimately, it seemed, and
she had such horribly strict ideas of honesty. She would never forgive
her own sister for cheating. "She must have seen 'The Quiver' on my
table," thought Eleanor, "and then to use it against me like this!" No
doubt she or Mr. Blake had told that hateful Madeline Ayres, who knew him
too. No doubt all the editors had been told. It was to be hoped that
Dorothy King, with her superior airs, realized that it was mostly her
fault. A dull flush spread over Eleanor's pale face, as it suddenly
flashed upon her that Beatrice Egerton was an editor.
Well, if Beatrice was in the secret, there was no telling how many she
had confided in. Eleanor's devotion to Miss Egerton had been utterly
without sentiment from the first. She realized perfectly that Beatrice
was flippant and unprincipled, swayed only by selfish considerations and
by a passion for making a sensation. If she did not mind being associated
with the story, she would tell it; only regard for her own reputation as
Eleanor's "backer" might deter her.
Swiftly Eleanor laid her plan. After all, what did it matter who knew?
Mr. Blake, Betty and Dorothy, Beatrice--the whole college--what could
they prove? Nothing--absolutely nothing, unless she betrayed herself. No
doubt they thought they had brought her to bay, and expected her to make
some sort of confession. They would find there was no getting around her
that way. There was no danger of discovery, so long as she kept her head,
and she would never show the white feather. She would write another
story--she could do it and she would, too, that very night. But first she
would go back to the Students' Building. The Dramatic Club was giving a
reception to Mr. Blake and the members of the faculty. She had been
unpardonably stupid to think of missing it.
As she crossed the shadowed space in front of the big building, she
caught sight of three dimly outlined figures clustered about one of the
pillars of the portico, and heard Frances West's voice, so sweet and
penetrating as to be quite unmistakable.
"Yes, he leaves it entirely to us," she was saying. "He said he thought
we could be trusted to know what was best."
"I wish he hadn't made the condition that no one should say anything to
her," objected a second speaker. "It doesn't seem to me quite wise to let
things just drift along the same as ever."
"Nonsense," broke in a third voice, sharp with irritation. "You know
perfectly well--"
Eleanor had walked as slowly as she dared. Now there was nothing for it
but to open the door without waiting to find out the identity of the last
two speakers, or risk being caught eaves-dropping.
She hurried on up the stairs to the society rooms on the second floor,
and devoted herself for the rest of the evening to the dullest and most
unpopular members of the faculty with an ardor that won her the heart-
felt gratitude of the president of the club.
"I can be agreeable," she thought, as she sat down at her desk an hour
later. "I can do whatever I make up my mind to. I'll show them that I'm
not going to 'drift along!'"
It was six o'clock in the morning when, stiff and heavy-eyed, she turned
off her light and crept into bed.
"I've driven a coach and four through their precious ten o'clock rule,"
she thought, "but I don't care. I've finished the story."
The story was a little sketch of western life, with characters and
incidents drawn from an experience of Jim's. Eleanor was an excellent
critic of her own work, and she knew that this was good; not so unusual,
perhaps, as the other one had been, but vivid, swinging, full of life and
color, far above the average of student work. It should go to Miss
Raymond the first thing in the morning. She would like it, and the
"Argus" perhaps would want it--Eleanor closed her tired eyes, and in a
moment was fast asleep.