"Got what?" demanded her seat-mate, who was a mathematical prodigy and had been working out problems in calculus all the way from Buffalo.
"Not one of those examples of yours," laughed Betty, "only an idea,—or at least about half an idea."
"I don't find fractions of ideas very useful," said the seat-mate.
"I never said they were," returned Betty irritably.
It had occurred to her that if there was any way to get Eleanor to confide in Miss Ferris, perhaps matters might be straightened out.
The missing half of the idea, to which Betty had not the faintest clew, was—how could it be done?
CHAPTER XVI
DORA CARLSON'S "SUGARING-OFF"
Dora Carlson pulled back the heavy oak door of the Hilton House and stepped softly into the hall. With bright, darting glances, such as some frightened wild creature might bestow on an unfamiliar environment, she crept past the parlor doors and up the stairs. Dora was not naturally timid, and her life on a lonely farm had made her self-reliant to a degree; but there was something about these big campus houses that awed her—mysterious suggestions of a luxurious and alien existence, of delightful festivities and dainty belongings, that stimulated her imagination and made her feel like a lawless intruder if she met any one in the passages.
Of course it was foolish. Nettie Dwight, who lived next door to her on Market Street, had not a single friend on the campus, and yet she had been into every one of the dwelling houses and explored them all from top to bottom. Where was the harm, she asked. All you had to do was to step up and open the door, and then walk along as if you knew where you were going. When you had seen as much as you wanted to, you could stop in front of some room of which the door stood open so that you could tell from the hall that it was empty, and turn around and go away again. Everybody would think that the person you had come to see was out. It sounded perfectly simple, but Dora had never been anywhere except to Eleanor's room at the Hilton House and once, at Betty Wales's invitation, to the Belden.