"You are the soul of truth and honor and generosity. You never think of yourself, but are always trying to make other people happy. Your noble nature is shown in your beautiful—" Eleanor's voice faltered and she flushed painfully. "I can't go on," she said. "It's so—so—" She stopped in utter confusion.
Dora had been listening with shining eyes. "Oh, please go on," she begged. "That's the very one I wrote for you. I didn't plan it a bit, but I hoped you'd get that one."
The matter might have been adjusted easily enough, if Beatrice, who was sitting between Betty and Dora, had not turned to Betty with her oracular smile, and murmured, "A keen sense of irony for one so young, isn't it?" behind her hand.
Betty flushed in spite of herself and looked up to find Dora staring at them with wide, startled eyes. She had caught the word irony, and distinctly remembered the succinct definition that she had learned years before at school—"saying the opposite of what you mean." She looked at Eleanor who was struggling to regain her composure and attacked the situation with simple directness.
"Miss Egerton," she said, "I couldn't avoid overhearing you just now. I don't see why any one should think I didn't mean what I wrote about Eleanor. Of course I meant it. You know I did, don't you, Eleanor?"
"Of course you meant it," repeated Eleanor, with an unsteady little laugh. "If you hadn't, I shouldn't have minded reading it. Please forgive me."
It was all over in a moment. Before the three strangers had had time to wonder what the trouble was, Betty had plunged gaily into her fortune. Nettie followed eagerly, and Beatrice had the grace to bring up the rear. There was the candy to eat after that and the party broke up with a fair semblance of mirth. But as she washed up the big pile of sticky dishes, Dora's face was troubled. What could Miss Egerton have meant? Why should Eleanor's dearest and most intimate friend have said such a thing? How could she have thought it?
Eleanor walked home wrapped in a silence which Betty's most vigorous sallies could not penetrate. Long after Dora had finished her dishes and gone to bed, she sat in her Morris chair in the dark, wide-awake, every nerve throbbing painfully. She had failed Dora Carlson, spoiled the party that the poor child had so counted on, made her Beatrice Egerton's butt and laughing stock. Dora would never wholly trust her again. She would wonder what Beatrice had meant. By and by she would guess, and the friendship that Eleanor had meant should brighten her college course, would be turned to a bitter memory. Whether or not she ever knew the whole miserable story would make small difference. She, Eleanor Watson, had made Dora waste her love on a cheat—a thief; she had made Betty Wales and Miss Ferris help a cheat.
Eleanor's face softened. Betty had been awfully good to Dora. Perhaps, after all, she had not been the one to tell Mr. Blake. But Betty's disappointment was not the worst thing. Betty would make other friends— find other interests. Dora Carlson was different; she had not the talent for making many friends, and in losing Eleanor she would lose all she had. For the first time Eleanor realized how mean and contemptible her action had been, because it did not concern herself alone, but involved every one of the people who cared about her—Jim and her father, Dora, Betty, Miss Ferris. It was a short list; perhaps Jean and Kate Denise cared a little too. She felt no resentment against Beatrice. There was no room for it in the press of deeper emotions. Her one idea was that she must do something to save them all. But what? Creep away like a thief in the night—let them forget that she had ever been a disgrace to them and to 19—? Eleanor's pride revolted against such a course, and yet what else was there to do? She had not even arrived at Betty's half answer to the problem when she undressed in the silence of the great, sleeping house and, thoroughly tired with her long vigil, forgot the difficult tangle until morning.