“I’VE PASSED OFF MY ENTRANCE LATIN”
Five minutes later Montana Marie appeared in Betty’s office looking particularly radiant. “I just stopped in to tell you that I’ve passed off my entrance Latin,” she said. “I knew you’d be glad——” Her eyes fell on the lavender-tinted note, which Jim had forgotten to recover, and she flushed guiltily.
“You shouldn’t have done such a thing,” Betty told her severely, as her glance followed Marie’s. “Mr. Watson has just been here. He thought—he wanted——” Betty stopped short, and her merry laughter rang out so loud that the psychology class, which was reciting next door, heard it and wondered.
“Mr. Watson will be at the Morton for dinner to-night,” Betty began again, smiling this time, “so be sure not to go out anywhere, because I shall need you to help entertain him.”
“I guess you don’t need me,” beamed Montana Marie. “I rather guess not! But I’ll be there. You can count on that, Miss Wales. I—I’m sorry if I’ve bothered you, but——” Marie stopped and slipped softly out, for Betty was not listening. With a shining, far-away look in her eyes, and a smile on her lips, she was thinking of—something else.
“I’m not sorry,—not a bit sorry,” murmured Montana Marie, hurrying off to her next class. She did not refer to the fact that, by delaying too long in Betty’s office, she had made herself late again—the second time that week—for freshman math.
CHAPTER VII
BINKS AMES MAKES A DISCOVERY
“Binks” Ames, otherwise Elizabeth B. Browning Ames and first cousin to Georgia, was now a sophomore. Being a strenuous little person and addicted to walks in all weather, she had grown even thinner and browner than she had been as a freshman. When she timidly discovered a friend in a crowd of girls she did not know and flashed her a friendly greeting, Binks seemed to be all wonderful big gray eyes and wonderful sweet sympathy.
“Binks is peculiar,” Georgia explained her tersely. “Couldn’t help that, could she, with a mother who goes in for Browning and Municipal Improvement and Suffrage and the Uplifting of the Drama and all such nonsense? Binks is lovely to her—pretends to take an interest in all her isms, and bluffs about understanding Robert Browning and Henry James, and about liking her name. But it’s all bluff. Binks is just as sensible as I am, and lots and lots more—decent,” ended the unsentimental Georgia. “Takes home stray cats, you know, and goes walking with freaks,—and doesn’t mind the bother. I never in all my life set eyes on as many stray cats as Binks finds homes for in a good average week. Of course Esther Bond is her big discovery. She was responsible for getting Esther into the Morton, you know, and since then Esther has mysteriously developed into the biggest all-around Senior Star that we’ve got.”