Betty Wales, Senior Part 22

"Nothing more important than the tail end of some French," answered Jean Eastman curtly, going to get her coat, which hung over a chair near the door. As she pa.s.sed Miss Carter she gave her a keen, questioning look which meant, so Betty decided, that Jean was as much surprised to find that this quiet soph.o.m.ore knew Betty Wales and her crowd, as Betty had been to see Jean established in Miss Carter's room on a footing of apparent intimacy.

"I've been here ever since luncheon," Jean went on, "and I was just going, wasn't I, Miss Carter? Oh, no, you're not driving me away--not in the least. I should be delighted to stay and talk to you both if I had time." And with a disagreeable little laugh Jean pinned on her hat, swept up her books, and started for the door.

Strange to say, Miss Carter seemed to take her hasty departure as a matter of course and devoted herself entirely to her other visitors, until, just as Jean was leaving, she turned to her with a question.

"Oh, Miss Eastman, I don't remember--did you say to-morrow at four?"

For a full minute Jean stared at her, her expression a queer mixture of anger and amused reproach. "No, I said to-morrow at three," she answered at last and went off down the stairs, humming a gay little tune.

Betty and Eleanor exchanged wondering glances. Jean was notorious for knowing only prominent girls. Her presence here and her peculiar manner together formed a puzzle that made it very difficult to give one's full attention to what Miss Carter was saying. There was also Miss Harrison.

Was she the senior Harrison, better known as the Champion Blunderbuss?

And if she was coming, why didn't she come?

Betty found herself furtively watching the door, which Jean had left open, and she barely repressed a little cry of relief when the Champion's ample figure appeared at the head of the stairs.

"I'm terribly late," she called out cheerfully. "I thought you'd probably get tired of waiting and go out. Oh," as she noticed Miss Carter's visitors, "I guess I'd better come back at five. I can as well as not."

But Betty and Eleanor insisted that she should do nothing of the kind.

"We'll come to see you again when you're not so busy," Betty promised Miss Carter, who gave them a sad little smile but didn't offer any objection to their leaving the Blunderbuss in possession.

"Well, haven't we had a funny time?" said Eleanor, when they were outside. "Did you know that Miss Carter tutored in French?"

"No," answered Betty. "Helen never gave me the impression that she was poor. Her room doesn't look much as if she was helping to put herself through college, does it?"

"Not a bit," agreed Eleanor, "nor her clothes, and yet Miss Harrison certainly acted as if she had come on business."

"Yes, exactly like Rachel's pupils. They always come bouncing in late, when she's given them up and we're all having a lovely time. Miss Carter acted businesslike too. She seemed to expect us to go."

"Well then, what about Jean?" asked Eleanor. "I couldn't make her out at all. Has she struck up some sort of queer friendship with Miss Carter or was she being tutored too?"

Betty gave a little gasp of dismay. "Oh, I don't know. I hoped you would. You see--she's trying for a part in the play."

"Then she can't be conditioned," said Eleanor easily. "Teddie Wilson has advertised the rule about that far and wide, poor child."

"And you don't think Jean could possibly not have heard of it?" Betty asked anxiously.

"Why, I shouldn't think so, but you might ask her to make sure. She certainly acted very much as if we had caught her at something she was ashamed of. Would you mind coming just a little way down-town, Betty? I want to buy some violets and a new magazine."

Betty was quite willing to go down-town, but she smiled mournfully at Eleanor's careless suggestion that she should speak to Jean. Asking Jean Eastman a delicate question, especially after the interview they had had that morning, was not likely to be a pleasant task. Betty wondered if she needed to feel responsible for Jean's mistakes. She certainly ought to know on general principles that conditions keep you out of everything nice from the freshman team on.

A visit from Helen Adams that evening threw some new light on the matter.

"Betty," Helen demanded, "isn't Teddie Wilson trying for a part in our play?"

"Helen Chase Adams," returned Betty, severely, "is it possible you don't know that she got a condition and can't try?"

"I certainly didn't know it," said Helen meekly. "Why should I, please?"

"Only because everybody else does," said Betty, and wondered if Jean could possibly belong with Helen in the ignorant minority. It seemed very unlikely, but then it seemed a sheer impossibility that Helen should have sat at the Belden House dinner-table day after day and not have heard Teddie's woes discussed. At any rate now was her chance to get some information about Miss Carter.

"While we are talking about conditions," she began, "does your friend Anne Carter tutor in French?"

Helen nodded. "It's queer, isn't it, when she has so much money? She doesn't like to do it either, but mademoiselle made her think it was her duty, because all the French faculty are too busy and there was no other girl who took the senior course that mademoiselle would trust. Anne thinks she'll be through by next week."

"Were many people conditioned in French?" asked Betty.

"Why, I don't know. I think Anne just said several, when she told me about it."

"What I mean is, are all those she tutors conditioned?"

"Why, I suppose so," said Helen, vaguely. "Seniors don't generally tutor their last term unless they have to, do they? There wouldn't be much object in it. Why are you so interested in Anne's pupils, Betty?"

"Oh, for no reason at all," said Betty, carelessly. "Eleanor and I went up to see her this afternoon, and some one came in for a lesson, as I understood it, so of course we didn't stay."

"What a shame! You'll go again soon, won't you?"

"Not until after she gets through tutoring," said Betty, decidedly.

"I wish Helen Adams had never seen that girl," she declared savagely to the green lizard after Helen had gone. "Or at least--well, I almost wish so. Whatever I do will go wrong. If I ask Jean whether she knows about the rule, she'll be horribly disagreeable, but if she gets Ba.s.sanio and then Miss Stuart reports her condition she'll probably come and tell me that I ought to have seen she was conditioned and warned her. Anyway I shall feel that I ought. It's certainly much kinder to speak to her than to ask Barbara to inquire of Miss Stuart. Eleanor can't speak to her. No one can but me." The lizard didn't even blink, but Betty had an inspiration. "I know what. I'll write to her."

Betty spent a long time and a great deal of note-paper on that letter, but at last it read to her satisfaction:

"DEAR JEAN:

"After you left this afternoon Miss Harrison came in, evidently to be tutored. So I couldn't help wondering if you could possibly have had the bad luck to get a condition, and if so, whether you know the rule about the senior play,--I mean that no one having a condition can take part.

Please, please don't think that I want to be interfering or disagreeable. I know you would rather have me ask you now than to have anything come out publicly later.

"BETTY."

Two days later Jean's answer appeared on the Belden House table.

"If you thought I had a condition in French, why didn't you go and ask mademoiselle about it? She would undoubtedly have received you with open arms. Yes, I believe that Miss Carter, whom you seem to know so intimately all of a sudden, tutors the Harrison person. Just why you should lump me with her, I don't see. I know the rule about conditions and the play as well as you do, but being without either a condition or a part, I can't see that it concerns me particularly.

"Yours most gratefully, "JEAN REAVES EASTMAN."

Betty read this note through twice and consigned it, torn into very small pieces, to her waste-basket. But after thinking the whole matter over a little more carefully she decided that Jean had had ample grounds for feeling annoyance, if not for showing it, and that there would be just time before dinner to find her and tell her so.

Jean looked a good deal startled and not particularly pleased when she saw Betty Wales standing in her door; but Betty, accepting Jean's att.i.tude as perfectly natural under the circ.u.mstances, went straight to the point.

"I've come to apologize for my mistake, Jean," she said steadily, "and to tell you how glad I am that it is a mistake. I don't suppose I can make you understand why I was so sure--or at least so afraid----"

"Oh, we needn't go into that," said Jean, with an attempt at graciousness. "I suppose Miss Carter said something misleading. You are quite excusable, I think."