"Why, no reason at all—" began Betty. But Eleanor had vanished.
Once in her own room she locked the door and gave free rein to the fury of passion and remorse that held her in its thrall. Jim's visit had brought out all her nobler impulses. She had caught a glimpse of herself as she would have looked in his eyes, and the scorn of her act that she had felt at intervals all through the fall and winter—that had prevented any real enjoyment of her stolen honors and kept her from writing home about them,—had deepened into bitter self-abnegation. But Jim had come and gone. He still believed in her, for he did not know what she had done. Nobody knew. Nobody would ever know now. It was absurd to fear discovery after all these months. So Eleanor had argued, throwing care and remorse to the winds, and resolving to forget the past and enjoy life to the full.
Then, just at the moment of greatest triumph, had come Mr. Blake's startling announcement. He had not told her what he had done or meant to do, nor how he had found out about the story, nor who shared his secret; and Eleanor had been too amazed and frightened to ask. Now, in the solitude of her room, she drew her own swift conclusions. It was a plot against her peace of mind, his coming up to lecture. Who had arranged it? Who indeed but Betty Wales? She knew Mr. Blake intimately, it seemed, and she had such horribly strict ideas of honesty. She would never forgive her own sister for cheating. "She must have seen 'The Quiver' on my table," thought Eleanor, "and then to use it against me like this!" No doubt she or Mr. Blake had told that hateful Madeline Ayres, who knew him too. No doubt all the editors had been told. It was to be hoped that Dorothy King, with her superior airs, realized that it was mostly her fault. A dull flush spread over Eleanor's pale face, as it suddenly flashed upon her that Beatrice Egerton was an editor.
Well, if Beatrice was in the secret, there was no telling how many she had confided in. Eleanor's devotion to Miss Egerton had been utterly without sentiment from the first. She realized perfectly that Beatrice was flippant and unprincipled, swayed only by selfish considerations and by a passion for making a sensation. If she did not mind being associated with the story, she would tell it; only regard for her own reputation as Eleanor's "backer" might deter her.
Swiftly Eleanor laid her plan. After all, what did it matter who knew? Mr. Blake, Betty and Dorothy, Beatrice—the whole college—what could they prove? Nothing—absolutely nothing, unless she betrayed herself. No doubt they thought they had brought her to bay, and expected her to make some sort of confession. They would find there was no getting around her that way. There was no danger of discovery, so long as she kept her head, and she would never show the white feather. She would write another story—she could do it and she would, too, that very night. But first she would go back to the Students' Building. The Dramatic Club was giving a reception to Mr. Blake and the members of the faculty. She had been unpardonably stupid to think of missing it.
As she crossed the shadowed space in front of the big building, she caught sight of three dimly outlined figures clustered about one of the pillars of the portico, and heard Frances West's voice, so sweet and penetrating as to be quite unmistakable.
"Yes, he leaves it entirely to us," she was saying. "He said he thought we could be trusted to know what was best."
"I wish he hadn't made the condition that no one should say anything to her," objected a second speaker. "It doesn't seem to me quite wise to let things just drift along the same as ever."
"Nonsense," broke in a third voice, sharp with irritation. "You know perfectly well—"
Eleanor had walked as slowly as she dared. Now there was nothing for it but to open the door without waiting to find out the identity of the last two speakers, or risk being caught eaves-dropping.