Betty hesitated. “I’m not sure that I do understand. You mean that you’ve actually written all Helena Mason’s papers?”
Esther nodded. “Ready for her to copy. At first I only corrected hers, but for nearly two years I’ve written them outright. And I’ve studied nearly every lesson for her—taken all the notes for us both, and recited as little as possible myself, so the resemblances in our work shouldn’t be noticed. Now I shall come forward and take part in things. Oh, it will be splendid, Miss Wales!” She paused uncertainly. “But perhaps you think I’ve been too dishonest to deserve a loan from the Student’s Aid, or any chance of earning money. If I’d only known, before I came, that there were plenty of chances! I didn’t realize it even after I came, when Helena first proposed my doing the things that seemed to me unfair. I did them because I hated to quarrel with her—and after I’d done them she held them over me. She’s not as mean as she seems, Miss Wales. Her mother has brought her up to feel that appearances are the only thing that count.”
The cloak of diffidence and reserve had fallen away from the girl. She could speak for herself and for her friend in eloquent defense. Betty watched and listened, amazed at the sudden change in her. She was free at last to be herself.
“No,” Betty said at last, “I don’t think you have forfeited your chance. Mrs. Mason was most to blame, in suggesting the plan and not then seeing that her daughter did her own work. Helena shall have another chance too, if I can arrange it for her and she will take it; but it will probably mean explaining to her teachers how her work has been done so far. With you”—Betty considered—“I don’t see why you shouldn’t let them explain the change in you to suit themselves. You’ll be a great mystery to them”—Betty smiled at her. “We’ve called you that—the Mystery—Mrs. Post and I, when we’ve talked about you. I’m glad our Mystery is solved at last. You haven’t seemed quite real to me up in your lonely tower room.”
“Haunted by ghosts,” added Esther, with a sad smile. “I know what the girls have thought, you see. I couldn’t say anything. Now I suppose there’ll be more stories, especially if Helena leaves college.”
But the Thorn had arranged that. “I’ve told the girls that loyalty to you means silence, Miss Wales,” she explained to Betty. “I proved to them how dangerous it is to guess about queer things like that, and they’ve all promised not to say a word about anything they saw. Of course”—the Thorn couldn’t resist so fine a chance to plume herself on her superiority—“finding that paper and the fire-escape business and Miss Mason’s story about it can’t help giving me some very interesting suspicions, but they shall never pass my lips.”
Next Betty went to see Helena, prepared to offer to help her through her crisis; but Helena had made her plans and was determined to abide by them.
“I couldn’t stay on, Miss Wales,” she said, “and I certainly don’t want to. I’ve had a good time here, laughing in my sleeve at the people I’ve taken in with my clever stories, and pretty verses—why, the one to Agatha Dwight actually made a splash that rippled away down to New York. The funny thing about it is that the stories and all are like me. Mother attracts fascinating, out-of-the-way people, and we’ve always lived among them in an atmosphere of unusual, fascinating happenings. How in the world that little country girl gets hold of it is a mystery to me. She’s never seen such people, or been to their dinners or behind the scenes at their plays. I’ve never even told her much.”
“That’s the mystery of genius,” said Betty, who had thought a great deal about Esther Bond. “You never can explain it.”
“And if you haven’t got it,” said Helena hopelessly, “you can’t get it. I’m not unusual. I shall never shine except in mother’s reflected glory. I’m sorry for mother; she’s wasted so much time and money trying to make me seem clever. Now she’s got to get used to having a perfectly commonplace daughter. I shall do my best to make her like the real me, but at any rate she’ll have to endure me as I am. I shan’t permit any more efforts at veneering me. They’re too demoralizing.”