The girl nodded. “I see.”
“You can do one thing right away,” said Helen briskly, rising and buttoning her coat. “Do you know Jane Drew? Well, she’s an awfully clever senior and an editor. She’s going to have dinner with me at Cuyler’s, and I’d like you to come too. You see one of the things you have jumped into already is being a star contributor to the ‘Argus,’ and we always want to meet our star contributors.”
Miss Carter hesitated.
“Never mind your waist,” Helen urged tactfully. “It looks perfectly fresh to me, but you can keep your coat on if you’d rather.”
“All right, I’ll come,” said Miss Carter bravely.
And having yielded, she kept to the spirit, as well as the letter, of her promise. Jane, who was a very matter-of-fact young person, treated her with the same off-hand cordiality that she would have bestowed on any other chance acquaintance with interesting possibilities. The girls who stopped at the table to speak to Jane or Helen, smiled and nodded affably when they were introduced. Some of them stared a little, at the unusual combination of two prominent seniors and an obscure underclassman, but Miss Carter did not flinch. After dinner, when Jane had gone to speak to some friends at another table, she leaned forward toward her hostess. “I want to thank you,” she said shyly, “for telling me about yourself and for bringing me here. Do you know, I was going to leave college, but I’m not now. I’m going to stay on—and try jumping,” she ended quickly as Jane reappeared.
So Helen felt that her dinner had been a success, even though she should have to borrow largely from her next month’s meagre allowance to pay for it.
On her way through the campus she met Miss Raymond, hurrying to meet an important engagement. But she stopped to inquire about Miss Carter.
“I knew you’d manage it,” she said, when she had heard Helen’s brief story of her adventures. “You’re a person of resources. That’s why we wanted you on the ‘Argus’ board.”
Helen fairly danced the rest of the way to the Belden. “Perhaps I shan’t be afraid of her next time,” she thought. “I’d rather she’d say that than have sixty verses in the ‘Argus.’ Oh, what a selfish pig I was trying to be! I don’t deserve to have it all come out so beautifully. And—oh, dear, I’m late for the meeting of the house play committee, and Betty said it was awfully important.”