“How queer,” she thought. “She’s had the blues for a week, but I thought she was all right this evening.” Then, as her conjectures about Helen suggested Eleanor’s headache, she tiptoed out to see if she could do anything for the prostrate heroine.
Eleanor’s transom was dark and her door evidently locked, for it would not yield when Betty, anxious at getting no answer to her knocks, tried to open it. But when she called softly, “Eleanor, are you there? Can I do anything?” Eleanor answered crossly, “Please go away. I’m better, but I want to be let alone.”
So, murmuring an apology, Betty went back to her own room, and as Helen seemed to be sound asleep, she saw no reason for making a nuisance of herself a second time, but considerately undressed in the dark and crept into bed as softly as possible.
If she had turned on her light, she would have discovered two telltale bits of evidence, for Helen had left a very moist handkerchief on her desk and another rolled into a damp, vindictive little wad on the chiffonier. It was not because she knew she had done her part badly that she had gone sobbing to bed, while the others ate lemon-ice and danced merrily down-stairs. Billy was a hard part; Mary Brooks had said so herself, and she had only taken it because when Roberta positively refused to act, there was no one else. Helen couldn’t act, knew she couldn’t, and didn’t much care. But not to have any friends in all this big, beautiful college–that was a thing to make any one cry. It was bad enough not to be asked anywhere, but not to have any friends to invite oneself, that was worse–it was dreadful! If she went right off up-stairs perhaps no one would notice; they would think at first that somebody else was looking after her guests while she dressed, and then they would forget all about her and never know the dreadful truth that nobody she had asked to the play would come.
When it had first been decided to present “Sherlock Holmes” and the girls had begun giving out their invitations, Helen, who felt more and more keenly her isolation in the college, resolved to see just how the others managed and then do as they did. She heard Rachel say, “I think Christy Mason is a dear. I don’t know her much if any, but I’m going to ask her all the same, and perhaps we shall get better acquainted after awhile.”
That made Helen, who took the speech more literally than it was meant, think of Caroline Barnes. One afternoon she and Betty had been down-town together, and on the way back Miss Barnes overtook them, and came up with them to see Eleanor, who was an old friend of hers. Betty introduced her to Helen and she walked between them up the hill and necessarily included both of them in her conversation. She was a homely girl, with dull, inexpressive features; but she was tall and well-proportioned and strikingly well dressed. Betty had taken an instant dislike to her at the time of their first meeting and greatly to Eleanor’s disgust had resisted all her advances. Eleanor had accused her frankly of not liking Caroline.
“No,” returned Betty with equal frankness, “I don’t. I think all your other friends are lovely, but Miss Barnes rubs me the wrong way.”
Helen knew nothing of all this, and Miss Barnes’s lively, slangy conversation and stylish, showy clothes appealed to her unsophisticated taste.
When the three parted at the head of the stairs, Miss Barnes turned back to say, “Aren’t you coming to see me? You owe me a call, you know.”
Helen and Betty were standing close together, and though part of the remark applied only to Betty, she looked at them both.