"Yes, I will try! It is more noble to stand up than to--fall!" answered Helen, thus betraying her actual knowledge of Jane's argument. "I will not be a coward--I will fight as my--father--my brother. They did not lay down at Warsaw! They fought to death!"
Again Jane was conscious of the atmosphere of tragedy. Somehow Helen was very unusual, and Jane confessed to herself just now, rather difficult. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, however, Jane was still firm as ever in her belief that Helka Podonsky was a persecuted girl, an artist, and probably a born aristocrat. Surely all this was guarantee of her worth and reliability.
The tapping at Jane's door, for some moments left unanswered, became more insistent, and satisfying herself that Helen had regained her composure, Jane now proceeded to answer the summons.
As the door opened two blue eyes blazed in.
"Jane Allen!" sang out Clarisse Cummings, she known as the prettiest freshie. "We are having an awful time; and I have been appointed a committee of one to come to your highness (this with a jerk of a curtsy) to beg arbitration."
"Come in, Clarisse," Jane interrupted. "I have not much time before class, but I shall be glad to help you if I can."
"Oh, you surely can. Hello, Nellie!" to Helen. "Where ever have you been? Sick?"
"Just nerves," assisted Jane, as Helen smiled a "non vult" to the charge. "Helen has been working very hard with her violin, and sometimes out of doors at that. Strange we have so little understanding of the artistic temperament."
"Oh, yes--of course," faltered Clarisse, and her manner gave clue to Jane that the "arbitration" requested might have something to do with Helen.
"I knew you must be sick, Nell," purred the pretty one, "and I insisted you should not be put out until we had heard your side."