Poor Jim, unhesitatingly attributing Betty's embarrassment to some blunder on his part, was covered with mortification. "It's evidently a secret society," he decided, "and that other fool girl didn't know it, and got me into this mess."
So he listened with deferential attention while Betty tried to tell him how lovely the snowy meadows and the bleak, ice-bound river looked on a bright June day, and carefully followed her lead as she turned the conversation from river scenery to skating and canoeing; so that they reached home without a second approach to the dangerous topics.
Jim was going back to his work that evening. As he said good-bye, he crushed Betty's hand in a bear-like grip that fairly brought tears to her eyes.
"I'm awfully glad to have met you," he said, "though I don't suppose you'd ever guess it—I'm such a duffer with girls. Eleanor told me how you stuck by her last year and helped her get her start. I tell you we appreciate anything that's done for Eleanor, dad and I do."
As Betty watched him stride off to the Hilton House, she remembered Madeline's advice. "I guess she isn't enjoying her honors very much," she thought. "Imagine getting into Dramatic Club and not writing home about it! Why, I should telegraph! And if I had a thing in the 'Argus'"—Betty smiled at the absurdity of the idea—"half the fun would be to see Nan's face. And if I was ashamed to see her face!"
Betty gave a sigh of relief that the comic interlude was over. Under ordinary circumstances the entertaining of Jim would have been the height of bliss. Just now all she wanted was to go to New York and get back again, with her errand done and one source of danger to Eleanor, if possible, eliminated.
Jim left Harding on Tuesday evening. Wednesday morning bright and early, Betty started for New York. She went by the early train for two reasons. It was easier to slip away unquestioned during chapel-time, and furthermore she meant to reach New York in time to see Mr. Blake that same afternoon and take the sleeper back to Harding. She thought that spending the night with any of her New York cousins would involve too much explanation, and besides she could sleep beautifully on the train, and she wanted to be back in time for the Thursday basket-ball practice. The girls played every day now, and very often Miss Andrews dropped in to watch them and take the measure of the various aspirants for a place on the official teams, which it would soon be her duty to appoint.
CHAPTER XIII
VICTORY OR DEFEAT
During the first part of her journey Betty busied herself with reading over Mr. Blake's two letters and the lengthy replies that the editors had composed. These last were as totally unlike as their writers, and Betty thought that none of them hit the point so well as Madeline's suggestions, and none was so cogent as the plea that Eleanor and Jim between them had unconsciously made; but they might all help. From Mr. Blake's two letters she decided that he must be a very queer sort of person, and she devoutly hoped that his conversational style would be less obscure than that of his first letter to Frances West; for it would be dreadful, she thought, if she had to keep asking him what he meant.