Betty Wales, Senior Part 23

"No," said Betty, "I'm not. I've studied logic and argument and I ought to know better than to depend on circ.u.mstantial evidence. I'm very, very sorry."

Jean looked at her keenly. "I suppose you and Eleanor have discussed this affair together. What did she think?"

"I haven't mentioned it to her since the afternoon we were at Miss Carter's, and she doesn't know that I wrote you. That day we both felt the same--that is, we didn't know what to think. If you don't mind, I should like to tell her that it's all right."

"Why in the world should you bother to do that?" asked Jean curiously.

"Because she'll be so glad to know, and also because I think it's no more than fair to all of us. You did act very queerly that afternoon, Jean."

"Oh, did I?" said Jean oddly. "You have a queer idea of fairness. You won't work for me when I've put you on a committee for that express purpose; but no matter how disagreeable I am to you about it, you won't take a good chance to pay up, and you won't let Eleanor take hers."

"Let Eleanor take hers?" repeated Betty wonderingly.

"Yes, her chance to pay up her score. She owes me a long one. You know a good many of the items. Why shouldn't she pay me back now that she has a good chance? You haven't forgotten Mary Brooks's rumor, have you?

Eleanor could start one about this condition business without half trying."

"Well, she won't," Betty a.s.sured her promptly. "She wouldn't think of mentioning such a thing to anybody. But as long as we both misunderstood, I'm going to tell her that it's all right. Good-bye, Jean, and please excuse me for being so hasty."

"Certainly," said Jean, and Betty wondered, as she ran down-stairs, whether she had only imagined that Jean's voice shook.

The next afternoon Mr. Masters and the committee, deciding that Jean's Ba.s.sanio was possibly just a shade more attractive than Mary Horton's, gave her the part. Kate Denise was Portia, and everybody exclaimed over the suitability of having the lovers played by such a devoted pair of friends. As for Betty, she breathed a sigh of relief that it was all settled at last. Jean had won the part strictly on her merits, and she fully understood Betty's construction of a committee-woman's duty to the play. Nevertheless Betty felt that, in spite of all their recent contests and differences of opinion, they came nearer to being friends than at any time since their freshman year, and she wasn't sorry that she had gone more than halfway in bringing about this happy result.

Meanwhile the date of the Glee Club concert was fast approaching.

Georgia Ames came in one afternoon to consult Betty about the important matter of dress.

"I suppose that, as long as we're going to sit in a box, I ought to wear an evening gown," she said.

"Why, yes," agreed Betty, "if you can as well as not. It's a very dressy occasion."

"Oh, I can," said Georgia sadly. "I've got one all beautifully spick and span, because I hate it so. I never feel at home in anything but a shirt-waist. Beside my neck looks awfully bony to me, but mother says it's no different from most people's. The men are coming, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, they're coming," a.s.sented Betty gaily, "and between us we've been asked to every tea on the campus, I should think. So they ought to have a good time in the afternoon, and college men are always crazy over our concerts."

"Your man will be all right," said Georgia admiringly, "and I'll do my best for the other one. Truly, Betty, I am grateful to you. I think it's awfully good of you to ask me. Even if you asked me because I'm the other Georgia's namesake, you wouldn't do it if you didn't like me a little for myself, would you?"

"Of course not, you silly child," laughed Betty.

"I want you to have my reserved seat for the basket-ball game," went on Georgia. "The subs each have one seat to give away, and I've swapped mine with a soph.o.m.ore, so you can sit on your own side."

"I shall clap for you, though," Betty told her, "and I hope you'll get a chance to play. The other Georgia wasn't a bit athletic, so your basket-ball record will never be mixed with hers."

Betty repeated Georgia's remark about being nothing but the other Georgia's namesake to Madeline. "I think she really worries about it,"

she added.

Madeline only laughed at her. "She hasn't seemed quite so gay lately--that probably means warnings from her beloved instructors at midyears. It must be awfully hard work to keep up the freshman grind with everybody under the sun asking you to do things. Georgia hates to snub people, so she goes even when she'd rather stay at home. Twice lately I've met her out walking with the Blunderbuss. I must talk to her about the necessity of being decently exclusive."

CHAPTER XIII

GEORGIA'S AMETHYST PENDANT

"Has your man come yet, Lucy?"

"Mine hasn't, thank goodness! He couldn't get off for the afternoon."

"Mine thought he couldn't and then he changed his mind after I'd refused all the teas."

"Oh, I wouldn't miss the teas for anything. They're more fun than the concert."

"Of course she wouldn't miss them, the dressy lady, with violets to wear and a new white hat with plumes."

"The Hilton is going to have an orchestra to play for dancing. Isn't that pretty cute?"

"But did you hear about Sara Allen's men? They both telegraphed her last evening that they could come,--both, please note. And now she hasn't any seats."

So the talk ran among the merry crowd of girls who jostled one another in the narrow halls after morning chapel. For it was the day of the Glee Club concert. The first installment of men and flowers was already beginning to arrive, giving to the Harding campus that air of festive expectancy which it wears on the rare occasions when the Harding girl's highest ambition is not to shine in her cla.s.ses or star in the basket-ball game or the senior play, but only to own a "man."

Tom Alison and his junior roommate arrived at the Belden soon after luncheon. Tom looked so distinguished in a frock coat and high hat that Betty hoped her pride and satisfaction in taking him around the campus weren't too dreadfully evident.

Ashley Dwight was tall, round-shouldered, and homely, except when he smiled, which he did very seldom because he was generally too busy making every one within hearing of his low voice hysterical with laughter over his funny stories. He took an instant fancy to Georgia, and of course Georgia liked him--everybody liked Ashley, Tom explained.

So Betty's last worriment vanished, leaving nothing to mar the perfection of her afternoon.

The Hilton girls' brilliant idea of turning their tea into a dance had been speedily copied by the Westcott and the Belden, and the other houses "came in strong on refreshments, cozy-corners, and conversation,"

as Ashley put it. So it was six o'clock before any one dreamed that it could be so late, and the men went off to their hotels for dinner, leaving the girls to gloat over the flower-boxes piled high on the hall-table, to gossip over the afternoon's adventures, and then hurry off to dress, dinner being a superfluity to them after so many salads and sandwiches, ices and macaroons, all far more appetizing than a campus dinner menu.

"I'll come down to your room in time to help you finish dressing," Betty promised Georgia. "My things slip on in a minute."

But she had reckoned without a loose nail in the stair-carpet, which, apparently resenting her hasty progress past it, had torn a yard of filmy ruching off her skirt before she realized what was happening.

"Oh, dear!" she mourned, "now I shall have to rush just as usual. Helen Chase Adams, the gathering-string is broken. Have you any pink silk? I haven't a thing but black myself. Then would you try to borrow some? And please ask Madeline to go down and help Georgia. Her roommate is going rush to the concert, so she had to start early."

Helen had just taken the last st.i.tches in the ruffle and Betty was putting on her skirt again, when Tom's card came up to her. By the time she got down-stairs they were all waiting in the reception-room and Mr.

Dwight was helping Georgia into her coat and laughing at the chiffon scarf that she a.s.sured him was a great protection, so that Betty didn't see Georgia in her hated evening gown until they took off their wraps at the theatre.

"Awfully sorry I couldn't come to help you," she whispered, as they went out to the carriage, "but I know you're all right."

"I did my little best not to disgrace you," Georgia whispered back. "My neck is horribly bony, no matter what mother thinks; but I covered some of it up with a chain."

When they got to the theatre, almost every seat was filled and a pretty little usher hurried them through the crowd at the door, a.s.suring them importantly over her shoulder that the concert would begin in one minute and she couldn't seat even box-holders during a number. Sure enough, before they had fairly gotten into their places, the Glee Club girls began to come out and arrange themselves in a rainbow-tinted semicircle for the first number. They sang beautifully and looked so pretty that Tom gallantly declared they deserved to be encored on that account alone; and he led the applause so vigorously that everybody looked up at their box and laughed. Alice Waite had the other seats in it, and as the three men were friends and all in the highest spirits, it was a gay party.

"There's Jerry Holt," Tom would say, "see him stare at our elegance."

"Oh, we're making the rest of the fellows envious all right," Ashley would answer. "Who's the stunning girl in the second row, next the aisle? We don't miss a thing from here, do we?"

"Prettiest lay-out I've ever seen, this concert is," Alice's escort would declare fervently. "Sh, Tommie, the banjo club's going to play."