"I hope you weren't asleep," said Madeline, settling herself comfortably at the other end of the couch. "I didn't mean to wake you; that was why I came in without knocking."
"I wasn't asleep," returned Betty faintly. "I was just resting."
"You look as if you needed to," said Madeline cheerfully. "Does your head ache now?"
"Not—not very much," stammered Betty.
"Have you read over all this?" Madeline reached out a long arm for the life of Napoleon that lay on the table.
"No, hardly any of it," confessed Betty, reddening as she remembered the
"Busy" sign.
But Madeline remarked briskly, "That's good. Neither have I. I don't feel a bit like cramming, so I shall bluff. When father was studying art in Paris, he knew a man who had been one of Napoleon's guards at St. Helena. He was old and lame and half blind and stunningly homely then, and an artist's model. He used to tell merry tales about what a tiger of a man—" Madeline stopped short in the act of replacing the life of Napoleon on the table and stared at Betty in unfeigned admiration.
"Betty Wales," she said at last, "you are certainly a splendid actress. I never dreamed that you knew."
Betty's eyes followed Madeline's to the table, and then to "The Quiver," lying in full view where she had dropped it an hour before. There was one chance in a thousand that Madeline meant something besides Eleanor's story, and Betty resolved to make sure.
"Knew what, Madeline?" she asked steadily, trying not to blush but feeling the tell-tale red spread over her cheeks in spite of all she could do.