CHAPTER IX
DR. EATON GROWS MAJESTIC
Betty had not violated a promise in telling Alice Waite and Tom Alison about Georgia. The joke was really getting too good to keep, and Madeline had suggested that, as Georgia had not much longer to live, her friends and promoters should let the cat out of the bag by inches, being careful, however, to keep Dr. Eaton in the dark until the very last minute. So probably half the ten o’clock class in English Essayists had heard about Georgia, and nudged their neighbors excitedly when, one morning in late December, Dr. Eaton announced that he wished to see Miss Ames for a moment at the close of the hour.
“The Merry Hearts,” most of whom were in the ten o’clock division, exchanged swift glances, and then tried to conceal their amusement or embarrassment in various characteristic fashions. Madeline and Roberta, each wearing an expression of lamb-like innocence, stared inquiringly at Dr. Eaton. Bob stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Helen studied her note-book with an air of intense absorption. Babe, Babbie and Betty played with their fountain pens and tried vainly not to look ill at ease. The rest of the class, however, made no particular effort not to look interested, and Dr. Eaton, in spite of his impersonal attitude toward his young charges, must have detected something unusual in the air.
Nobody knew how he had settled the question of Georgia’s identity since the day of the Belden House tea. Either he had lost interest in her, and had not taken the trouble to pick her out of the class; or else he had failed to do so and was too proud to ask any more questions. All “The Merry Hearts” knew was the fact of his having finally given Georgia’s handkerchief to the janitor, who had in turn surrendered it to Babe, after a long argument in which he flatly declared that there was “somethin’ crooked somewhar and he’d hold her responsible if that there Miss Ames ever turned up to bother him.”
And now Dr. Eaton had requested Georgia to wait after class! While “The Merry Hearts” were still frantically racking their brains for a way of turning the situation to account, he launched another question.
“Is Miss Ames present this morning?”
“No, she isn’t,” answered Madeline Ayres promptly. “She’s ill, I presume. Shall I take the message to her?”
“Thank you, I will write a note,” answered Dr. Eaton in his most icy manner.
“Oh, very well,” returned Madeline cheerfully. “It will amount to the same thing. I mean I will see that she gets the note.”
Dr. Eaton’s lecture was even more brilliant than usual, but it is doubtful if the initiated half of the ten o’clock division in English Essayists knew any more about the genius of Thomas Carlyle at its close than they had at its commencement. The question before the house was: What did Dr. Eaton want of Georgia Ames, and would her sponsors be able to save her life until after midyears, as they had planned?