CHAPTER IV
ELEANOR WATSON, AUTHORESS
Eleanor Watson leaned back in her Morris chair, her eyes fixed absently on the opposite wall, her forehead knit in deep thought. "Somehow there isn't enough of me to go round," she reflected. "I don't see why,—the other girls, no quicker or brighter than I, seem to get on all right. I wonder why I can't. I can't give up everything in the way of recreation."
It was easy enough for an outsider to analyze her difficulty. Never before had Eleanor tried to "go round," as she put it. She had always done what she pleased, and let alone the things that did not appeal to her. Now she had suddenly assumed responsibilities. She really wanted to do her college work, all of it, as it deserved to be done, and to do it honestly, without resort to any of the various methods of deception that she had employed almost unconsciously hitherto. She wanted to make life pleasanter for Dora Carlson. She wanted to write the long, newsy letters to Jim and to Judge Watson; letters that brought characteristic replies, confidential from Jim, genially humorous from her father, but both equally appreciative and as different as possible from their cold, formal notes of the year before. On the other hand, she wanted, both for selfish and unselfish reasons, to enter into the social life of the college. She had not lost her worldly ambitions in one summer; and she had not gained, at a bound, the concentration of mind that enabled other girls to get through an amazing amount of work and fun with perfect ease. She knew infinitely less of the value of time than Betty Wales; she had less sense of proportion than Helen Adams; and she was intensely eager to win all sorts of honors.
So it was natural that she should stare at the wall opposite for some little time before she came to the conclusion that sitting empty-handed, thinking about her troubles, while the morning took to itself wings, was not the best way to mend matters. And when she did finally come back to earth, it was only to give an angry little exclamation, pick up a magazine from the table at her elbow, and go to reading it. At the end of half an hour, however, she tossed it aside, and sitting resolutely down at her desk, wrote diligently until lunch time.
"Have you done your theme, Eleanor?" asked Alice Waite, overtaking her on the way down to the dining-room.
Eleanor nodded curtly. "Did it between twelve and one."
"Really?" Alice's brown eyes grew big with admiration. "Oh, dear, it takes me days to do mine, and when they're done they're nothing, and yours are just fine. I do think it's queer—"
"Nonsense," interrupted Eleanor crossly. "You don't know anything about my themes. You never saw one."
"Oh, but Betty Wales says—" began Alice eagerly.