Betty Wales, Senior Part 24

And then they would settle themselves to watch the stage and listen to the music for a while.

"It's all good, but what I'm looking forward to is this," said Ashley Dwight, pointing out the Glee Club's last number on his program. "I can't wait to hear 'The Fames of Miss Ames.'"

"The what?" asked Betty, consulting her card. "Why, Georgia Ames, is it about you? Did you know they were going to have it?"

Georgia nodded. "The leader came and asked me if I cared. She seemed to think it would take, so I told her to go ahead. But I didn't realize that this concert was such a big thing," she added mournfully, "and I didn't know I was going to sit in a box."

"Pretty grand to be sitting in a box with the celebrity of the evening, isn't it, Ashley?" said Tom.

And Ashley said something in a low voice to Georgia, which made her laugh and blush and call him "too silly for anything."

Finally, after the Mandolin Club had played its lovely "Gondolier's Song," and the Banjo Club its amusing and inevitable "Frogville Echoes,"

the Glee Club girls came out to sing "The Fames of Miss Ames," which a clever junior had written and a musical soph.o.m.ore had set to a catchy melody. A little, short-haired girl with a tremendous alto voice sang the verses, which dealt in witty, flippant fashion with the career of the two Georgias, and the whole club came in strong on the chorus.

"And now she's come to life, (Her double's here).

And speculation's rife, (It's all so queer).

The ghost a.s.sociations, Hold long confabulations, And the gaiety of nations Is very much enhanced by Georgia dear!"

It was only shameless doggerel, but it took. Topical songs always take well at Harding, and never had there been such a unique subject as this one. Between the verses the girls clapped and laughed, nodded at Georgia's box, and whispered explanations to their escorts; and when at last the soloist answered their vociferous demands for more with a smiling head-shake and the convincing statement that "there wasn't any more--yet," they laughed and made her sing it all over.

This time Georgia asked one of the men to change seats with her, and slipped quietly into the most secluded corner of the box, behind Betty's chair, declaring that she really couldn't stand it to be stared at any longer. She looked positively pretty, Betty thought, having a chance for the first time to get a good look at her. The sparkle in her eyes and the soft color in her cheeks that the excitement and embarra.s.sment had put there were very becoming. So was the low dress, in spite of the fact that Georgia was undoubtedly right in considering herself a "shirt-waist girl." Her neck wasn't particularly thin, or if it was the lovely old chain that she wore twisted twice around it kept it from seeming so.

Betty turned to ask her something about the song and noticed the pendant that hung from her chain. It was of antique pattern--an amethyst in a ring of little pearls, with an odd quaint setting of dull gold. It looked familiar somehow. It was--yes, it was just like Nita Reese's lost pin--the one that belonged to her great grandmother and that had disappeared just before the Belden House play--one of the first thefts to be laid to the account of the college robber. Only, instead of a pin this was a pendant, fastened to the chain by a tiny gold ring. That was the only difference, for--yes, even the one little pearl that Nita had lost of the circle was missing here.

Betty didn't hear Georgia's answer to her question. She turned back to the stage, which swayed sickeningly as she watched it. At last the song ended, and while she clapped mechanically with the rest she gave herself a little shake, and told herself sternly that she was being a goose, that it was absurd, preposterous, even wicked--this thought that had flashed into her head. Nita's pin wasn't the only one of its kind; there might be hundreds just like it. Georgia's great grandmother probably had had one too.

Betty talked very fast on the way up to the Belden. She was thankful that Tom and his friend were going back to New Haven that night and would have time for only the hastiest of good-byes.

"See you later, Miss Ames," Ashley Dwight called back as he ran down the steps after Tom.

"He's asked me to the prom, Betty. Think of that!" explained Georgia, her eyes shining.

"How--nice," said Betty faintly. "I'm awfully tired, aren't you?"

"Tired!" repeated Georgia gaily. "Not a bit. I should like to begin all over again this minute. I'm hot though. We walked pretty fast up the hill." She threw back her coat and unwound the scarf that was twisted over her hair and around her throat. It caught on the amethyst pendant and Georgia pulled it away carefully, while Betty watched in fascinated silence, trying to make up her mind to speak. She might never have a good chance again. Ordinarily Georgia wore no jewelry,--not a pin or a ring. She had certainly never worn this pendant before at Harding. It would be so easy and so sensible to say something about it now and set her uncomfortable thoughts at rest.

Betty wet her lips nervously, made an heroic effort, and began.

"What a lovely chain that is, Georgia." She hoped her voice sounded more natural to Georgia than it did to herself. "Is it a family heirloom?"

Georgia put up her hand absently, and felt of the chain. "Oh, that,--yes, it is. It really belongs to mother, but she let me bring it here. She's awfully fond of old jewelry, and she has a lot. I hate all kinds, but this covers my bones so beautifully."

"The pendant is lovely too," put in Betty hastily, as Georgia moved off toward her room. "Is that old too?"

"I don't know," said Georgia stiffly. "That isn't a family thing. It was given to me--by somebody I don't like."

"The somebody must like you pretty well," said Betty, trying to speak lightly, "to give you such a stunning present."

Georgia did not answer this, except by saying, "Good-night. I believe I am tired," as she opened her door.

Up in her own corridor Betty met Madeline Ayres. "Back so soon?" said Madeline, who refused to take Glee Club concerts seriously. "I've had the most delicious evening, reading in solitary splendor and eating apples that I didn't have to pa.s.s around. I'm sure your concert wasn't half so amusing. How did Georgia's song go?"

"Finely," said Betty without enthusiasm. "Did she tell you about it while you helped her dress?"

"No, for I didn't help her. I went over to the Hilton right after dinner. Lucile told me, in a valiant attempt to persuade me that I was foolish to miss the concert."

"Oh," said Betty limply, opening her own door.

Madeline hadn't seen the pendant then. Probably some freshman who didn't know about Nita's loss had helped Georgia to dress. Well, what did that matter? She had Georgia's own word that the pin was a gift. Besides it was absurd to think that she would take Nita's pin and wear it right here at Harding. And yet--it was just the same and the one little pearl was gone. But a person who would steal Nita's pin, wouldn't make a present of it to Georgia. Then the pin couldn't be Nita's.

"I'm getting to be a horrid, suspicious person," Betty told the green lizard. "I won't think about it another minute. I won't, I won't!"

And she didn't that night, for she fell asleep almost before her head touched the pillow. Next morning she woke in the midst of a long complicated dream about Georgia and the green lizard. Georgia had stolen him and put a ring around his tail, and the lizard was protesting vigorously in a metallic shriek that turned out, after awhile, to be the Belden House breakfast-bell jangling outside her door.

"They never ring the rising-bell as loud as that," wailed Betty, when she had consulted her clock and made sure that she had slept over.

Before she was dressed Georgia Ames appeared, bringing a delicious breakfast tray.

"Helen said that you have a nine o'clock recitation," she exclaimed, "and I thought you probably hadn't studied for it and would be in a dreadful hurry."

Betty thanked her, feeling very guilty. Georgia was wearing a plain brown jumper dress, with no ornament of any kind, not even a pin to fasten her collar; and she looked as cool and self-possessed and cheerful as usual. In the sober light of morning it seemed even more than absurd to suppose that she was anything but a nice, jolly girl, like Rachel and K. and Madeline,--the sort of girl that you a.s.sociated with Harding College and with the "Merry Hearts" and asked to box parties with a nice Yale man, who liked her and invited her to his prom.

In the weeks that followed Betty saw a great deal of Georgia, who seemed intent on showing her grat.i.tude for the splendid time that Betty had given her. Betty, for her part, felt that she owed Georgia far more than Georgia owed her and found many pleasant ways of showing her contrition for a doubt that, do her best, she couldn't wholly stifle. The more she saw of Georgia, the more clearly she noticed that there was something odd about the behavior of the self-contained little freshman, and also that she was worrying a good deal and letting n.o.body know the reason.

"But it's not conditions or warnings or anything of that sort,"

Georgia's round-eyed roommate declared solemnly to Betty, in a burst of confidence about the way she was worrying over Georgia. "She sits and thinks for hours sometimes, and doesn't answer me if I speak to her. And she says she doesn't care whether she gets a chance to play in the big game or not. Just imagine saying that, Miss Wales."

"She's tired," suggested Betty loyally. "She'll be all right after vacation."

Meanwhile, in the less searching eyes of the college world, Georgia continued to be the spoiled child of fortune. She came back from the prom, with glowing tales of the good times she had had, and whether or not she cared about it she was the only "sub" who got a chance to play in the big game. She made two goals, while Betty clapped for her frantically and her cla.s.s made their side of the gallery actually tremble with the manifestations of their delight.

It was just as Betty was leaving the gym on the afternoon of the game that Jean Eastman overtook her.

"Could you come for a walk?" she asked abruptly. "There is something I want to get settled before vacation. It won't take long. It's about Ba.s.sanio," she went on, when they had gotten a little away from the crowd. "I want to give up my part. Do you suppose Mary Horton would take it now?"

"You want to give up Ba.s.sanio?" Betty repeated wonderingly.

"Yes. There's no use in mincing matters. I did have a condition in French, and Miss Carter was tutoring me, just as you thought. I had worked it off the day I answered your note, but of course that doesn't alter anything. They say mademoiselle never hands in her records for one semester until the next one is almost over, so nothing would have come to light until it was too late for a new person to learn the part. Don't look so astonished, Betty. It's been done before and it may be done again, but I don't care for it myself." Then, as Betty continued to stare at her in horrified silence, "If you're going to look like that, I might as well have kept the part. The reason I decided to give it up was because I didn't think I should enjoy seeing your face at the grand denouement. You see, when you and Eleanor came in that afternoon I thought you'd guessed or that Barbara Gordon and Teddie Wilson, who knew of a similar case, had, and had sent you up to make sure. But after you'd apologized for your note and squared things with Eleanor, I--well, I didn't think I should enjoy seeing your face," ended Jean, with a little break in her voice. "I--told you I had a sense of honor, and I have."

Betty put out her hand impulsively. "I'm glad you changed your mind, Jean. It's too bad that you can't have a part, but you wouldn't want it in any such way."

"I did though," said Jean, blinking back the tears. "I knew it would come out in the end,--I counted on that, and I shouldn't have minded Miss Stuart's rage or the committee's horror. But you're so dreadfully on the square. You make a person feel like a two-penny doll. I don't wonder that Eleanor Watson has changed about a lot of things. Anybody would have to if they saw much of you."

Betty's thoughts flew back to Georgia. "I wish I thought so."

"Well," said Jean fiercely, "I do. That's why I've always hated you. I presume I shall hate you worse than ever to-morrow. Meanwhile, will you please tell Barbara? I can't help what they all think, and I don't care.

I only wanted you to see that I've got a little sense of obligation left and that after I've let a person apologize--Don't come any further, please."

Jean ran swiftly down the steep path leading to the lower level of the back campus and Betty turned obediently toward home, feeling very small and useless and unhappy. Jean's announcement had been so sudden and so amazing that she didn't know what she had said in response to it, and she was quite sure that she hadn't done at all what Jean expected. Then this confirmation of her suspicions about Jean gave her an uneasy feeling about Georgia. That baffling young person was just leaving the gym as Betty got back to it, and the sight of her surrounded by a bevy of her admiring friends rea.s.sured Betty wonderfully. Nevertheless she decided to go and see Miss Ferris. There was something she wanted to ask about.