Pleasant things generally submerged the unpleasant ones at Harding, so Betty’s delight in Roberta’s unexpected success quite wiped out her remembrance of Bob’s theories about Jean, until, several days after the Shylock trials, Jean herself confirmed them.

“I want to be sure that you know I’m going to try for Bassanio,” she said, overtaking Betty on the campus between classes, “so you can have plenty of time to hunt up a rival candidate. I can’t imagine who it will be unless you can make Eleanor Watson believe that it’s her duty to the class to try. But this time I hope you’ll come out into the open and play fair, or at least as nearly fair as you can, considering that you ought to be helping me. I may not be much on philanthropy, but I don’t think I can be accused of entirely lacking a sense of honor.”

“Why Jean,” began Betty, trying to remember that Jean was hurt and disappointed and possibly didn’t mean to be as rude as her words sounded, “please don’t feel that way. It wasn’t that I didn’t want you for Shylock. Of course Roberta is one of my best friends and I’m glad to have her get the big part in the play, because she’s never had anything else; but I didn’t dream that she would get it.”

“Then why did you drag her in at the last minute?”

Betty explained how that had happened, but Jean only laughed disagreeably. “I consider that it was a very irregular way of doing things,” she said, “and I think a good many in the class feel the same way about it. Besides—but I suppose you’ve entirely forgotten that it was I who got you on the play committee.”

“Listen, Jean,” Betty protested, anxious to avoid a discussion that would evidently be fruitless. “It was Mr. Masters, and not I or any of the other girls, who didn’t like your acting, or rather your acting of Shylock. And Mr. Masters himself suggested that you would make a better Bassanio. Didn’t Barbara tell you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jean, “she told me. That doesn’t alter the fact that if you hadn’t produced Roberta Lewis when you did, Mr. Masters might have decided that he liked my Shylock quite well enough.”

“Jean,” said Betty, desperately, “don’t you want the play to be as good as it possibly can?”

“No,” retorted Jean, coolly, “I don’t. I want a part in it. I imagine that I want one just as badly as Roberta Lewis did. And if I don’t get Bassanio, after what Barbara and Clara Ellis have said to me, I shall know whom to blame.” She paused a moment for her words to take effect. “My father says,” she went on, “that women never have any sense of obligation. They don’t think of paying back anything but invitations to afternoon tea. I must tell him about you. He’ll find you such a splendid illustration. Good-bye, or I shall be late to chemistry.” Jean sped off in the direction of the science building.

“Oh, dear,” thought Betty, sadly, “I wish I weren’t so stupid and so meek. Madeline can always answer people back when they’re disagreeable, and Rachel is so dignified that Jean wouldn’t think of saying things like that to her.”

Then she smiled in spite of herself. It was all such a stupid tangle. Jean insisted on blaming her, and Roberta and the committee had insisted on praising her for finding 19— a Shylock, when she never intended or expected to do anything of the kind. “It just shows,” thought Betty, “that the things that seem like deep-laid schemes are very often just happenings, and the simple-looking ones are the schemes. Well, I certainly hope Jean will get Bassanio. Eleanor’s window is open. I wonder if she can hear me.”

“Oh, Eleanor,” she called, when the window had been opened wider in response to her trill, “there isn’t any committee meeting this afternoon. Don’t you want to go with me to see Anne Carter? Let’s start early and take a walk first. It’s such a lovely glitter-y day.”

The “glitter-y” day foregathered with a brisk north wind after luncheon, and it was still mid-afternoon when Betty and Eleanor ran up Miss Carter’s front steps, delighted at the prospect of getting in out of the cold. At the door they hesitated.

“It’s so long since I’ve regularly called on anybody in college,” laughed Betty, “that I’ve forgotten how to act. Don’t we go right up to her room, Eleanor?”

“Why yes. That’s certainly what people used to do to us in our freshman year. Don’t you remember how we were always getting caught with our kimonos on and our rooms fixed for sweep-day by girls we’d never seen?”

“I should think so.” Betty smiled reminiscently. “Helen Adams used to get so fussed when she was caught doing her hair. Then let’s go right up. We want to be friendly and informal and make her feel at home. She has the front room on the second floor. Helen spoke of its being so big and pretty. I do hope she’s in.”

She was in, for she called a brisk “come” in answer to Betty’s knock. She was sitting at a table-desk by the window, with her back to her door, and when it opened she did not turn her head. Neither did Jean Eastman who sat beside her, their heads together over the same book. Jean was reading aloud in hesitating, badly accented French, and paid even less attention to the intruders than Miss Carter, who called hastily, “In just one minute, Miss Harrison,” and then cautioned Jean not to forget the elisions.

“But we’re not Miss Harrison,” said Betty laughingly, amazed and embarrassed at the idea of meeting Jean here.

At the sound of her voice both the girls turned quickly and Miss Carter came forward with a hearty apology for her mistake. “I was expecting some one else,” she said, “and I thought of course it was she who came in. It was very stupid of me. Won’t you sit down?”

“But aren’t we interrupting?” asked Betty, introducing Eleanor.

“Nothing more important than the tail end of some French,” answered Jean Eastman curtly, going to get her coat, which hung over a chair near the door. As she passed Miss Carter she gave her a keen, questioning look which meant, so Betty decided, that Jean was as much surprised to find that this quiet sophomore knew Betty Wales and her crowd, as Betty had been to see Jean established in Miss Carter’s room on a footing of apparent intimacy.

“I’ve been here ever since luncheon,” Jean went on, “and I was just going, wasn’t I, Miss Carter? Oh, no, you’re not driving me away—not in the least. I should be delighted to stay and talk to you both if I had time.” And with a disagreeable little laugh Jean pinned on her hat, swept up her books, and started for the door.

Strange to say, Miss Carter seemed to take her hasty departure as a matter of course and devoted herself entirely to her other visitors, until, just as Jean was leaving, she turned to her with a question.

“Oh, Miss Eastman, I don’t remember—did you say to-morrow at four?”

For a full minute Jean stared at her, her expression a queer mixture of anger and amused reproach. “No, I said to-morrow at three,” she answered at last and went off down the stairs, humming a gay little tune.

Betty and Eleanor exchanged wondering glances. Jean was notorious for knowing only prominent girls. Her presence here and her peculiar manner together formed a puzzle that made it very difficult to give one’s full attention to what Miss Carter was saying. There was also Miss Harrison. Was she the senior Harrison, better known as the Champion Blunderbuss? And if she was coming, why didn’t she come?

Betty found herself furtively watching the door, which Jean had left open, and she barely repressed a little cry of relief when the Champion’s ample figure appeared at the head of the stairs.

“I’m terribly late,” she called out cheerfully. “I thought you’d probably get tired of waiting and go out. Oh,” as she noticed Miss Carter’s visitors, “I guess I’d better come back at five. I can as well as not.”

But Betty and Eleanor insisted that she should do nothing of the kind.

“We’ll come to see you again when you’re not so busy,” Betty promised Miss Carter, who gave them a sad little smile but didn’t offer any objection to their leaving the Blunderbuss in possession.

“Well, haven’t we had a funny time?” said Eleanor, when they were outside. “Did you know that Miss Carter tutored in French?”

“No,” answered Betty. “Helen never gave me the impression that she was poor. Her room doesn’t look much as if she was helping to put herself through college, does it?”

“Not a bit,” agreed Eleanor, “nor her clothes, and yet Miss Harrison certainly acted as if she had come on business.”

“Yes, exactly like Rachel’s pupils. They always come bouncing in late, when she’s given them up and we’re all having a lovely time. Miss Carter acted businesslike too. She seemed to expect us to go.”

“Well then, what about Jean?” asked Eleanor. “I couldn’t make her out at all. Has she struck up some sort of queer friendship with Miss Carter or was she being tutored too?”

Betty gave a little gasp of dismay. “Oh, I don’t know. I hoped you would. You see—she’s trying for a part in the play.”

“Then she can’t be conditioned,” said Eleanor easily. “Teddie Wilson has advertised the rule about that far and wide, poor child.”

“And you don’t think Jean could possibly not have heard of it?” Betty asked anxiously.

“Why, I shouldn’t think so, but you might ask her to make sure. She certainly acted very much as if we had caught her at something she was ashamed of. Would you mind coming just a little way down-town, Betty? I want to buy some violets and a new magazine.”

Betty was quite willing to go down-town, but she smiled mournfully at Eleanor’s careless suggestion that she should speak to Jean. Asking Jean Eastman a delicate question, especially after the interview they had had that morning, was not likely to be a pleasant task. Betty wondered if she needed to feel responsible for Jean’s mistakes. She certainly ought to know on general principles that conditions keep you out of everything nice from the freshman team on.

A visit from Helen Adams that evening threw some new light on the matter.

“Betty,” Helen demanded, “isn’t Teddie Wilson trying for a part in our play?”

“Helen Chase Adams,” returned Betty, severely, “is it possible you don’t know that she got a condition and can’t try?”

“I certainly didn’t know it,” said Helen meekly. “Why should I, please?”

“Only because everybody else does,” said Betty, and wondered if Jean could possibly belong with Helen in the ignorant minority. It seemed very unlikely, but then it seemed a sheer impossibility that Helen should have sat at the Belden House dinner-table day after day and not have heard Teddie’s woes discussed. At any rate now was her chance to get some information about Miss Carter.

“While we are talking about conditions,” she began, “does your friend Anne Carter tutor in French?”

Helen nodded. “It’s queer, isn’t it, when she has so much money? She doesn’t like to do it either, but mademoiselle made her think it was her duty, because all the French faculty are too busy and there was no other girl who took the senior course that mademoiselle would trust. Anne thinks she’ll be through by next week.”

“Were many people conditioned in French?” asked Betty.

“Why, I don’t know. I think Anne just said several, when she told me about it.”

“What I mean is, are all those she tutors conditioned?”

“Why, I suppose so,” said Helen, vaguely. “Seniors don’t generally tutor their last term unless they have to, do they? There wouldn’t be much object in it. Why are you so interested in Anne’s pupils, Betty?”

“Oh, for no reason at all,” said Betty, carelessly. “Eleanor and I went up to see her this afternoon, and some one came in for a lesson, as I understood it, so of course we didn’t stay.”

“What a shame! You’ll go again soon, won’t you?”

“Not until after she gets through tutoring,” said Betty, decidedly.

“I wish Helen Adams had never seen that girl,” she declared savagely to the green lizard after Helen had gone. “Or at least—well, I almost wish so. Whatever I do will go wrong. If I ask Jean whether she knows about the rule, she’ll be horribly disagreeable, but if she gets Bassanio and then Miss Stuart reports her condition she’ll probably come and tell me that I ought to have seen she was conditioned and warned her. Anyway I shall feel that I ought. It’s certainly much kinder to speak to her than to ask Barbara to inquire of Miss Stuart. Eleanor can’t speak to her. No one can but me.” The lizard didn’t even blink, but Betty had an inspiration. “I know what. I’ll write to her.”

Betty spent a long time and a great deal of note-paper on that letter, but at last it read to her satisfaction:

“Dear Jean:

“After you left this afternoon Miss Harrison came in, evidently to be tutored. So I couldn’t help wondering if you could possibly have had the bad luck to get a condition, and if so, whether you know the rule about the senior play,—I mean that no one having a condition can take part. Please, please don’t think that I want to be interfering or disagreeable. I know you would rather have me ask you now than to have anything come out publicly later.

“Betty.”

Two days later Jean’s answer appeared on the Belden House table.

“If you thought I had a condition in French, why didn’t you go and ask mademoiselle about it? She would undoubtedly have received you with open arms. Yes, I believe that Miss Carter, whom you seem to know so intimately all of a sudden, tutors the Harrison person. Just why you should lump me with her, I don’t see. I know the rule about conditions and the play as well as you do, but being without either a condition or a part, I can’t see that it concerns me particularly.

“Yours most gratefully,
“Jean Reaves Eastman.”

Betty read this note through twice and consigned it, torn into very small pieces, to her waste-basket. But after thinking the whole matter over a little more carefully she decided that Jean had had ample grounds for feeling annoyance, if not for showing it, and that there would be just time before dinner to find her and tell her so.

Jean looked a good deal startled and not particularly pleased when she saw Betty Wales standing in her door; but Betty, accepting Jean’s attitude as perfectly natural under the circumstances, went straight to the point.

“I’ve come to apologize for my mistake, Jean,” she said steadily, “and to tell you how glad I am that it is a mistake. I don’t suppose I can make you understand why I was so sure—or at least so afraid——”

“Oh, we needn’t go into that,” said Jean, with an attempt at graciousness. “I suppose Miss Carter said something misleading. You are quite excusable, I think.”

“No,” said Betty, “I’m not. I’ve studied logic and argument and I ought to know better than to depend on circumstantial evidence. I’m very, very sorry.”

Jean looked at her keenly. “I suppose you and Eleanor have discussed this affair together. What did she think?”

“I haven’t mentioned it to her since the afternoon we were at Miss Carter’s, and she doesn’t know that I wrote you. That day we both felt the same—that is, we didn’t know what to think. If you don’t mind, I should like to tell her that it’s all right.”

“Why in the world should you bother to do that?” asked Jean curiously.

“Because she’ll be so glad to know, and also because I think it’s no more than fair to all of us. You did act very queerly that afternoon, Jean.”

“Oh, did I?” said Jean oddly. “You have a queer idea of fairness. You won’t work for me when I’ve put you on a committee for that express purpose; but no matter how disagreeable I am to you about it, you won’t take a good chance to pay up, and you won’t let Eleanor take hers.”

“Let Eleanor take hers?” repeated Betty wonderingly.

“Yes, her chance to pay up her score. She owes me a long one. You know a good many of the items. Why shouldn’t she pay me back now that she has a good chance? You haven’t forgotten Mary Brooks’s rumor, have you? Eleanor could start one about this condition business without half trying.”

“Well, she won’t,” Betty assured her promptly. “She wouldn’t think of mentioning such a thing to anybody. But as long as we both misunderstood, I’m going to tell her that it’s all right. Good-bye, Jean, and please excuse me for being so hasty.”

“Certainly,” said Jean, and Betty wondered, as she ran down-stairs, whether she had only imagined that Jean’s voice shook.

The next afternoon Mr. Masters and the committee, deciding that Jean’s Bassanio was possibly just a shade more attractive than Mary Horton’s, gave her the part. Kate Denise was Portia, and everybody exclaimed over the suitability of having the lovers played by such a devoted pair of friends. As for Betty, she breathed a sigh of relief that it was all settled at last. Jean had won the part strictly on her merits, and she fully understood Betty’s construction of a committee-woman’s duty to the play. Nevertheless Betty felt that, in spite of all their recent contests and differences of opinion, they came nearer to being friends than at any time since their freshman year, and she wasn’t sorry that she had gone more than halfway in bringing about this happy result.

Meanwhile the date of the Glee Club concert was fast approaching. Georgia Ames came in one afternoon to consult Betty about the important matter of dress.

“I suppose that, as long as we’re going to sit in a box, I ought to wear an evening gown,” she said.

“Why, yes,” agreed Betty, “if you can as well as not. It’s a very dressy occasion.”

“Oh, I can,” said Georgia sadly. “I’ve got one all beautifully spick and span, because I hate it so. I never feel at home in anything but a shirt-waist. Beside my neck looks awfully bony to me, but mother says it’s no different from most people’s. The men are coming, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, they’re coming,” assented Betty gaily, “and between us we’ve been asked to every tea on the campus, I should think. So they ought to have a good time in the afternoon, and college men are always crazy over our concerts.”

“Your man will be all right,” said Georgia admiringly, “and I’ll do my best for the other one. Truly, Betty, I am grateful to you. I think it’s awfully good of you to ask me. Even if you asked me because I’m the other Georgia’s namesake, you wouldn’t do it if you didn’t like me a little for myself, would you?”

“Of course not, you silly child,” laughed Betty.

“I want you to have my reserved seat for the basket-ball game,” went on Georgia. “The subs each have one seat to give away, and I’ve swapped mine with a sophomore, so you can sit on your own side.”

“I shall clap for you, though,” Betty told her, “and I hope you’ll get a chance to play. The other Georgia wasn’t a bit athletic, so your basket-ball record will never be mixed with hers.”

Betty repeated Georgia’s remark about being nothing but the other Georgia’s namesake to Madeline. “I think she really worries about it,” she added.

Madeline only laughed at her. “She hasn’t seemed quite so gay lately—that probably means warnings from her beloved instructors at midyears. It must be awfully hard work to keep up the freshman grind with everybody under the sun asking you to do things. Georgia hates to snub people, so she goes even when she’d rather stay at home. Twice lately I’ve met her out walking with the Blunderbuss. I must talk to her about the necessity of being decently exclusive.”