In her heart she was glad of the interruption. She had said just enough to pique curiosity. To tell more would have been bad policy all around. Betty Wales had arrived just in the nick of time.
But Jean was naturally disappointed. "Betty Wales," she said, "do you know what you interrupted just now? Beatrice Egerton was just going to tell me the inside facts about Eleanor's story in the 'Argus.'"
"Was she?" said Betty steadily. "If there are any inside facts, as you call them, don't you think Eleanor is the one to tell you?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Jean carelessly. "Eleanor's so tiresome. She wants to be the centre of the stage all the time. Shouldn't you think she'd be willing to give other people a little show now?"
"Why, she is," returned Betty vaguely.
"Not much," asserted Jean with great positiveness. "She's sulking in her tent this very minute because the girls aren't singing her basket-ball song. Anybody who wasn't downright selfish would be glad to have girls like Helen Adams get a little chance."
"Eleanor's tired and doesn't think," suggested Betty.
"You'd better go down to the door," said the head usher. "The 'green' faculty are coming in swarms."
The game went on much as last year's had done. First one gallery shook with forbidden applause, then the other. Sophomores sang paeans to their victories, freshmen pluckily ignored their mistakes. T. Reed appeared as if by magic here, there, and everywhere. Rachel Morrison played her quiet, steady game at the sophomore basket. Katherine Kittredge, talking incessantly to the bewildered freshman "home" whom she guarded, batted balls with ferocious lunges of her big fist back to the centre field, where a dainty little freshman with soft, appealing brown eyes, half hidden under a mist of yellow hair, occasionally managed to foil T. Reed's pursuit and sent them pounding back into the outstretched arms of a tall, ungainly home who tossed or dropped them—it was hard to tell which—into the freshman basket. It was a shame to let her play, the sophomores grumbled. She was a giantess, not a girl. But as the score piled up in their favor, they grew more amiable and laughed good- humoredly at the ineffectual attempts of their guards to block the giantess's goals.
Betty watched it all with keen interest and yet with a certain feeling of detachment. It was splendid fun, but what did it matter after all who won or lost? The freshman centres muffed another ball. Up in the "yellow" gallery she saw a tall girl standing behind a pillar unmistakably wink back the tears. How foolish, just for a game!