It was so seldom nowadays that she obtruded her affairs upon any one’s notice that Betty glanced at her wonderingly. Her eyes had their starry look, and a smile that she was futilely endeavoring to keep in the background played around the corners of her mouth.
“I’m glad she’s got over the blues,” thought Betty. “Why, where are you going?” she asked aloud.
“Oh, only to the Westcott House,” answered Helen with an assumption of unconcern. “Would you wear the blue silk waist or the brown dress?”
“Well, the Westcott is the swellest house on the campus, you know. When I go there I always put on my very best.”
“Yes, but which is my best?”
Betty considered a moment. “Why, of course they’re both pretty,” she began with kindly diplomacy, “but dresses are more the thing than waists. Still, the blue is very becoming. But I think–yes, I’m sure I’d wear the brown.”
“All right. If you change your mind before Sunday you can let me know.”
“Yes,” said Betty briefly. She was examining the batiste skirt to see if it would need pressing for the dramatics. After all, Jack was more fun, and probably Mr. Parsons was invited by this time anyhow–he knew lots of Harding girls. What was the name of Jack’s dormitory house? She would ask the Riches; they had a brother in the same one. So she strolled off to find the Riches, and incidentally to get the latest basket-ball news from Rachel and Katherine. At nine o’clock they turned her out; they were in training and supposed to be fast asleep by nine-thirty. When she opened her own door, Helen was still sitting idly in the wicker rocker, looking as if she would be perfectly content to stay there indefinitely with her pleasant thoughts for company.
Betty had quite lost interest in Helen lately; she had small patience with people who moped, and besides, between Eleanor and the valentine enterprise, her thoughts had been fully engrossed. But this new mood made her curious. “She acts as if she’d got a crush,” she decided. “She’s just the kind to have one, and probably her divinity has asked her to dinner, and she can’t put her mind on anything else. But who on earth could it be–in the Westcott House?”
She was on the point of inquiring, when Helen diverted her attention to something else. “I made a wonderful discovery to-day,” she said. “Theresa Reed and T. Reed are the same person.”