Betty's eyes sparkled with pleasure. "Do you really think so?" she asked eagerly. "I'm so glad, because I did, too, only I was afraid I might be prejudiced. But you wouldn't be." Betty stopped in confusion, for Mr. Blake had abruptly turned his back upon her, and was staring out the nearest window at the mist of flying snow.
There was a long pause, or at least it seemed oppressively long to Betty, who had no idea what it meant. Then "To whom have I the honor of speaking?" asked Mr. Blake in the queer, sarcastic tone that had annoyed Betty earlier in the interview.
As briefly as possible Betty explained who she was, and why she had come as special envoy from the editors. She was relieved when Mr. Blake turned back from his survey of the landscape with another faint suggestion of a smile flickering about his grim mouth.
"You relieve me immensely, Miss Wales," he said. "I was quite sure you were not an editor of the 'Argus,' because you seemed so totally unfamiliar with the machinery of literary ventures; and so I supposed, or at least I feared, that Miss Watson had come to speak for herself."
Betty flushed angrily. "Why, Mr. Blake, do I look—"
"No, you don't in the least," Mr. Blake interrupted her hastily. "But unfortunately, you must admit, appearances are sometimes deceitful. Now suppose that your friend Miss Watson had come herself. Does she look or act like the sort of person that she has shown herself to be?"
Betty smiled brightly. "Of course not," she said. "She doesn't at all. But then she isn't that sort of person. I mean she never will be again. If she was, I can tell you that I shouldn't be here. It's just because she's so splendid when she thinks in time and tries to be nice, and because she hasn't any mother and never had half a chance that I'm sorry for her now. And besides, it's certainly punishment enough to see that story in the 'Argus,' and know she didn't write it, and to get into Dramatic Club partly because of it, and so have that spoiled for her too, and not to be able to let her family be one bit proud of her. Don't you see that an open disgrace wouldn't mean any more punishment? It would only make it harder for her to be fair and square again. It isn't as if she didn't care. She hates herself for it, Mr. Blake, I know she does."
Betty paused for breath and Mr. Richard Blake took the opportunity to speak. "What, may I ask, is the Dramatic Club?"
"Oh, a splendid literary club that some of the nicest girls in college belong to," explained Betty impatiently, feeling that the question was not much to the point.
"Do you belong to it?" demanded Mr. Blake.