But on the club house piazza she found Dorothy King. Dorothy played golf exceedingly well, as she did everything else; but as she explained to Betty, “By junior year all this athletic business gets pretty much crowded out.” She still kept her membership in the club, however, and played occasionally, “just to keep her hand in for the summer.” She had done six holes this afternoon, all alone, and now she was resting a few moments before going home. She greeted Betty warmly. “I looked for you out on the course,” she said, “but your little pals thought you weren’t coming up to-day. How’s your game?”
“Better, thank you,” said Betty, “except my putting, and I’m going to practice on that now. Did you know that Christy had asked me to play with her in the inter-class foursomes?”
“That’s good,” said Dorothy cordially. “Do you see much of Eleanor Watson these days?” she added irrelevantly.
“Why–no-t much,” stammered Betty, blushing in spite of herself. “I see her at meals of course.”
“I thought you told me once that you were very fond of her.”
“Yes, I did–I am,” said Betty quickly, wondering what in the world Dorothy was driving at.
“She was down at the house last night,” Dorothy went on, “blustering around about having come back late, saying that she’d shown what a bluff the whole excuse business is, and that now, after she has proved that it’s perfectly easy to cut over at the end of a vacation, perhaps some of us timid little creatures will dare to follow her lead. But perhaps you’ve heard her talking about it.”
“I heard her say a little about it,” admitted Betty, suddenly remembering Mary Brooks’s remark. Had the “trouble” that Mary had foreseen anything to do with Dorothy’s questions?
“She’s said a great deal about it in the last two weeks,” went on Dorothy. “Last night after she left, her senior friend, Annette Cramer, and I had a long talk about it. We both agreed that somebody ought to speak to her, but I hardly know her, and Annette says that she’s tried to talk to her about other things and finds she hasn’t a particle of influence with her.” Dorothy paused as if expecting some sort of comment or reply, but Betty was silent. “We both thought,” said Dorothy at last, “that perhaps if you’d tell her she was acting very silly and doing herself no end of harm she might believe you and stop.”
“Oh, Miss King, I couldn’t,” said Betty in consternation. “She wouldn’t let me–indeed she wouldn’t!”