"Why, I'm busy," said Eleanor, shortly. "Didn't you know that it's less than a week to midyears?"
"But all this term—" protested Betty, wishing she had said nothing, yet reluctant now to let the opportunity slip through her hands.
"Well, to tell the truth," broke in Eleanor, impatiently, "our interests are different, Betty,—they have been from the first. You like to be friends with everybody. I like to pick and choose. I don't really care anything about the rest of the Chapin house girls, and I can't see you without seeing them too."
"But this fall," began Betty.
"Well—the truth is this fall—" said Eleanor, fiercely, "this fall I forgot who I was and what I was. Now I've come to my senses again." And without giving Betty time to reply she swept off into the darkness.
Betty wasn't very hungry for dinner. As soon as possible she slipped out of the noisy dining-room, up to the silence of the deserted third floor.
"What I can't understand," she told the green lizard, "is the way her voice sounded. It certainly broke just as if she was trying not to cry. Now, why should that be? Is she sorry to have come to her senses, I wonder?"
The green lizard had no suggestions to offer, so Betty put on her new kimono with butterflies in the border and a bewitching pink sash—it was real Japanese and the envy of all her friends—and prepared to spend the evening cramming for her history exam, with Nita Reese.