"Eleanor!" she gasped helplessly. Somehow the sight of the real Eleanor, smiling and lovely, made the deceit she had practiced seem so much more concrete and palpable, the penalty she must pay at best so much more real and dreadful. Betty had puzzled over the rights and wrongs of the matter until it had come to be almost an abstraction—a subject for formal, impersonal debate, like those they used to discuss in the junior English classes, in high school days—"Resolved: that it is right to help plagiarists to try again." Now the reality of it all was forced upon her. In spite of her surprise at seeing Eleanor, who almost never came to her room now, and her dismay that she should have come on this evening in particular, she found time to be glad that she had not yet refused Dorothy's request—and time to be a little ashamed of herself for being so glad.
Her perturbation showed so plainly in her face and manner that Eleanor could not fail to notice it. Her smile vanished and a troubled look stole into her gray eyes. "May I come in, Betty?" she asked. "Or are you too busy?"
"No-o," stammered Betty. "Come in, Eleanor, of course. I—I was just writing a note."
Eleanor glanced at the floor, littered with all Betty's futile beginnings, and her smile came flashing back again. "I should think," she said, "that you must be writing a love letter—if it isn't a sonnet— judging by the trouble it's making you. They told me downstairs that you were cramming history, but I was sure it would take more than a mere history cram to keep you away from that music. Isn't it lovely?"
"Yes," said Betty. "Would you like—shan't we go down and dance?" It would surely be easier to talk down there, with plenty of people about who did not know.
Again her embarrassment and constraint were too evident to be ignored, and this time Eleanor went straight to the heart of the matter.
"Betty," she said, "don't tell me that you're not glad to see me back again after all this time. I know I'm queer and horrid and not worth bothering about, but when you find it out,—when you give me up—you and Jim—I shall stop trying to be different."
For an instant Betty hesitated. Then the full import of Eleanor's words flashed upon her. There was no mistaking their sincerity. She knew at last that she did "really mean something" to somebody. Ethel Hale had been wrong. Eleanor had not forgotten her old friends—and Betty would go to New York. With a happy little cry she stretched out her arms and caught Eleanor's hands in hers.
"I'm so glad you feel that way," she said, "and I shall never stop caring what you do, Eleanor, and neither will Jim. I know he won't."
"He gave me up once before, and if you knew something—" She broke off suddenly. "Betty, Jim is coming Friday night. That's one reason why I'm here. I didn't want him to miss seeing you just because I'd been disagreeable and was too proud to come and say I'm sorry. I am sorry, Betty,—I'm always sorry when it's just too late."