"Well, it's considerably more than fairly decent," said Jean cheerfully. "I'm freezing here, Eleanor, and it's late too. Don't bother about your song. Come over to the gym. with me and you can go in the back way."
"No, thank you," said Eleanor in frigid tones, and went back as she had come.
To be beaten, and by Helen Chase Adams, of all people! It was too humiliating. Six basket-ball songs had been printed and hers rejected. No doubt the other five had been written by special friends of the committee. She had depended on Jean to look after hers—although she had not doubted for a moment that it would be among the very best submitted— and Jean had failed her.
Worse yet, the story on which she had staked her hopes had come back from
Miss Raymond, with a few words of perfunctory, non-committal criticism.
Miss Raymond had not read it to her class, much less sent the "Argus"
editors after it.
"Does she know, too?" questioned Eleanor. "Does she think that because I've cheated once I can't ever be trusted again, or is it just my luck to have them all notice the one thing I didn't write and let alone the things I do?"
It was two weeks since Mr. Blake's lecture, and in that time she had accomplished nothing of all that she had intended. Her idea had been to begin over—to blot out the fact that once she had not played fair, and starting on a clean sheet, repeat her triumph and prove to herself and other people that her position in college affairs was no higher than she deserved. But so far she had proved nothing, and every day the difficulties of her position increased. It was almost more than she could manage, to treat the girls whom she suspected of knowing her secret with exactly her accustomed manner. She had not been able to verify her suspicions except in the case of Beatrice Egerton. There was no doubt about her. When the two were alone together she scarcely took pains to conceal her knowledge, and her covert hints had driven Eleanor into more than one outburst of resentment which she bitterly regretted when it was too late. It was absolutely impossible to tell about Betty. "She treats me exactly as she did when Jim was here," reflected Eleanor, "and just as she did last year, for that matter. If she doesn't know it's no particular credit to her, and if she does—" Eleanor could not bear the idea of receiving kindness from people who must despise her.
Jean ran on to the gym., shivering in her thin dress, and muttering savagely over Eleanor's "beastly temper."
As she passed the sophomore-senior line, one and another of her friends shouted out gay greetings.
"Hurry up, Jean, or we shall get in before you do."
"You sophomore ushers look like a St. Patrick's Day parade."