Miss Carter was in, the maid said, and a moment later she appeared to speak for herself. She flushed with embarrassment when she saw Helen, and her dreadful, disfiguring scar showed all the more plainly on her reddened cheek.
“Oh, I supposed it was the woman with my washing,” she said. “I don’t have many calls. You must excuse this messy shirt waist. Please sit down.”
“Won’t you take me up to your room?” asked Helen, trying to think how Betty Wales would have put the other girl at her ease. “We can talk so much better there.”
Miss Carter hesitated. “Why, certainly, if you prefer. It’s in great confusion. I’m packing, or getting ready to pack, rather,” and she led the way up-stairs to a big room that, even in its half-dismantled condition, looked singularly attractive and quite different somehow from the regulation college room.
“I have a dreadful confession to make,” said Helen gaily, when they were seated.
“I’ve taken your verses for the ‘Argus.’ I’ve already sent them in to Miss Raymond, and now I’ve come to ask if you are willing. I do hope you are.”
“Why certainly,” said Miss Carter quietly. “You are perfectly welcome to them of course. You needn’t have taken the trouble to come away up here to ask.”
Then she relapsed into silence. Helen could not tell whether she was pleased or not. She had an uncomfortable feeling that she was being dismissed; but she did not go. Never in her life had she worked so hard to make conversation as she did in the next ten minutes. The “Argus,” the new chapel rules, Miss Raymond and her theme classes, the sophomore elections,—none of them evoked a responsive chord in the strange girl who sat impassive, with no thought apparently of her social duties and responsibilities.
“She must think I don’t know how to take a hint,” reflected Helen, “but I don’t care. I’m going to keep on trying.”
Presently she noticed that from Miss Carter’s window could be seen Mrs. Chapin’s house and the windows of her and Betty’s old room.