"Oh, no," demurred the villain. "Eleanor is leading lady, of course. She has three different costumes, and she looks like a queen in every one of them. Katherine is going to be Sherlock Holmes, and Adelaide Rich is Dr.

Watson and--oh, I mustn't tell you any more, or Alice won't enjoy it Sat.u.r.day."

"We had a little play here," said Miss Madison, "but it was tame beside this. Where did you get all the men's costumes?"

"Rented them, and the wigs and mustaches and pistols," and Betty explained about the dancing-school money which the house had voted to Roberta's project instead of to the spread.

"I wish I could act," said Alice. "I should love to be a man. But my mother wouldn't let me, so it's just as well that I'm a perfect stick at it."

"Roberta's father wouldn't let her either," said Betty, "but mother didn't mind, as long as it's only before a few girls. I presume she wouldn't like my coming over here and frightening you. But I honestly didn't think you'd be deceived."

"I'm so glad you came," said Miss Madison lying back luxuriously among her pillows. "Does the story of the play take place in the evening?"

"Yes, all of it. I'm dressed for the theatre, but I'm detained by the robbery."

"Then I have something I want to lend you. Alice, open the washstand drawer, please--no, the middle one--in that flat green box. Thank you.

Your hat, sir villain," she went on, snapping open an opera hat and handing it to Betty with a flourish.

"How perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Betty. "But how in the world did you happen to have it?"

"Why, I stayed with my cousins for two weeks just before I came up here, and I found it in their guest-chamber bureau. It wasn't Cousin Tom's nor Uncle d.i.c.k's, and they didn't know whose it was; so they gave it to me, because I liked to play with it. Should you really like to use it?"

"Like it!" repeated Betty, shutting the hat and opening it again with a low bow. "Why it will be the cream of the whole performance. It would make the play go just of itself," and she put it on and studied the effect attentively in the mirror.

"It's rather large," said Alice. "If I were you, I'd just carry it."

"It is big," admitted Betty regretfully, "or at least it makes me look very small. But I can snap it a lot, and then put it on as I exit. Miss Madison, you'll come to the play of course. I hadn't but one ticket left, but after lending us this you're a privileged person."

"I hoped you'd ask me," said Miss Madison gratefully. "The play does sound so exciting. But that wasn't why I offered you the hat."

"Of course not, and it's only one reason why you are coming," said Betty tactfully. "Now Alice, you must bring in my skirt. I have to walk so slowly in all these things, and it must be almost ten."

When Sir Archibald Ames, villain, had been transformed into a demure little maiden with rumpled hair and a high, stiff collar showing above her rain-coat, Betty took her departure. A wave of literary and dramatic enthusiasm had inundated the Chapin house. The girls were constantly suggesting theme topics to one another--which unfortunately no one but Mary Brooks could use, at least until the next semester; for in the regular freshman English cla.s.ses, subjects were always a.s.signed. And they were planning theatre parties galore, to see Jefferson, Maude Adams, and half a dozen others if they came to Harding. Betty, who had a happy faculty of keeping her head just above such pa.s.sing waves, smiled to herself as she hurried across the dark campus.

"Next week, when our play is over it will be something else," she thought. Rachel was already interested in basket-ball and had prospects of being chosen for the freshman cla.s.s team. Eleanor had been practicing hard on her guitar, hoping to "make" the mandolin club; and was dreadfully disappointed at finding that according to a new rule freshmen were ineligible and that her entrance conditions would have excluded her in any case.

"So many things to do," sighed Betty, who had given up a hockey game that afternoon to study history. "I suppose we've got to choose," she added philosophically. "But I choose to be an all-around girl, like Dorothy King. I can't sing though. I wonder what my one talent is.

"Helen," she said, as she opened her door, "have you noticed that all college girls have one particular talent? I wonder what ours will turn out to be. See what I have for the play."

Helen, who looked tired and heavy-eyed, inspected the opera hat listlessly. "I think your talent is getting the things you want," she said, "and I guess I haven't any. It's quarter of ten."

CHAPTER VIII

AFTER THE PLAY

"Sherlock Holmes" was quite as exciting as Miss Madison had antic.i.p.ated.

Most college plays, except the elaborate ones given in the gymnasium, which are carefully learned, costumed and rehea.r.s.ed, and supervised by a committee from the faculty--are amusing little farces in one or two short scenes. "Sherlock Holmes," on the other hand, was a four act, blood-curdling melodrama, with three different stage settings, an abundance of pistol shots, a flash-light fire, shrieks and a fainting fit on the part of the heroine, the raiding of a robbers' den in the denouement, and "a lot more excitement all through than there is in Mr.

Gillette's play," as Mary modestly informed her caste. It was necessarily cruder, as it was far more ambitious, than the commoner sort of amateur play; but the audience, whether little freshmen who had seen few similar performances, or upper cla.s.s girls who had seen a great many and so fully appreciated the novelty of this one, were wildly enthusiastic. Every actress, down to Helen, who made a very stiff and stilted "b.u.t.tons," and Rachel and Mary Rich who appeared in the robbers'

den scene as Betty's female accomplices, and in the heroine's drawing-room as her wicked mother and her stupid maid respectively, was rapturously received; and Dr. Holmes and Sir Archibald, whose hat was decidedly the hit of the evening, were forced to come before the curtain. Finally, in response to repeated shouts for "author," Mary Brooks appeared, flushed and panting from her vigorous exertions as prompter, stage manager, and a.s.sistant dresser, and informed the audience that owing to the kindness of Mrs. Chapin there was lemon-ice in the dining-room, and would every one please go out there, so that this awful mess,--with a comprehensive wave of her hand toward the ruins of the robbers' den piled on top of the heroine's drawing-room furniture, which in turn had been a rearrangment of Dr. Holmes's study,--could be cleared up, and they could dance there later?

At this the audience again applauded, sighed to think that the play was over, and then joyfully adjourned to the dining-room to eat Mrs.

Chapin's ice and examine the actors at close range. All these speedily appeared, except Helen, who had crept up-stairs quite unnoticed the moment her part was finished, and Eleanor, who, hunting up Betty, explained that she had a dreadful headache and begged Betty to look after her guests and not for anything to let them come up-stairs to find her. Betty, who was busily washing off her "fierce frown" at the time, sputtered a promise through the mixture of soap, water and vaseline she was using, delivered the message, a.s.sured herself that the guests were enjoying themselves, and forgot all about Eleanor until half-past nine when every one had gone and she came up to her room to find Helen in bed and apparently fast asleep, with her face hidden in the pillows.

"How queer," she thought. "She's had the blues for a week, but I thought she was all right this evening." Then, as her conjectures about Helen suggested Eleanor's headache, she tiptoed out to see if she could do anything for the prostrate heroine.

Eleanor's transom was dark and her door evidently locked, for it would not yield when Betty, anxious at getting no answer to her knocks, tried to open it. But when she called softly, "Eleanor, are you there? Can I do anything?" Eleanor answered crossly, "Please go away. I'm better, but I want to be let alone."

So, murmuring an apology, Betty went back to her own room, and as Helen seemed to be sound asleep, she saw no reason for making a nuisance of herself a second time, but considerately undressed in the dark and crept into bed as softly as possible.

If she had turned on her light, she would have discovered two telltale bits of evidence, for Helen had left a very moist handkerchief on her desk and another rolled into a damp, vindictive little wad on the chiffonier. It was not because she knew she had done her part badly that she had gone sobbing to bed, while the others ate lemon-ice and danced merrily down-stairs. Billy was a hard part; Mary Brooks had said so herself, and she had only taken it because when Roberta positively refused to act, there was no one else. Helen couldn't act, knew she couldn't, and didn't much care. But not to have any friends in all this big, beautiful college--that was a thing to make any one cry. It was bad enough not to be asked anywhere, but not to have any friends to invite oneself, that was worse--it was dreadful! If she went right off up-stairs perhaps no one would notice; they would think at first that somebody else was looking after her guests while she dressed, and then they would forget all about her and never know the dreadful truth that n.o.body she had asked to the play would come.

When it had first been decided to present "Sherlock Holmes" and the girls had begun giving out their invitations, Helen, who felt more and more keenly her isolation in the college, resolved to see just how the others managed and then do as they did. She heard Rachel say, "I think Christy Mason is a dear. I don't know her much if any, but I'm going to ask her all the same, and perhaps we shall get better acquainted after awhile."

That made Helen, who took the speech more literally than it was meant, think of Caroline Barnes. One afternoon she and Betty had been down-town together, and on the way back Miss Barnes overtook them, and came up with them to see Eleanor, who was an old friend of hers. Betty introduced her to Helen and she walked between them up the hill and necessarily included both of them in her conversation. She was a homely girl, with dull, inexpressive features; but she was tall and well-proportioned and strikingly well dressed. Betty had taken an instant dislike to her at the time of their first meeting and greatly to Eleanor's disgust had resisted all her advances. Eleanor had accused her frankly of not liking Caroline.

"No," returned Betty with equal frankness, "I don't. I think all your other friends are lovely, but Miss Barnes rubs me the wrong way."

Helen knew nothing of all this, and Miss Barnes's lively, slangy conversation and stylish, showy clothes appealed to her unsophisticated taste.

When the three parted at the head of the stairs, Miss Barnes turned back to say, "Aren't you coming to see me? You owe me a call, you know."

Helen and Betty were standing close together, and though part of the remark applied only to Betty, she looked at them both.

Betty said formally, "Thank you, I should like to," and Helen, pleased and eager, chorused, "So should I."

Later, in their own room, Betty said with apparent carelessness but with the covert intention of dropping Helen a useful hint, "You aren't going to see Miss Barnes, are you? I'm not."

And Helen had flushed again, gave some stammering reply and then had had for the first time an unkind thought about her roommate. Betty wanted to keep all her nice friends to herself. It must be that. Why shouldn't she go to see Miss Barnes? She wasn't asked so often that she could afford to ignore the invitations she did get. And later she added, Why shouldn't she ask Miss Barnes to the play, since Eleanor wasn't going to?

So one afternoon Helen, arrayed in her best clothes, went down to call and deliver her invitation. Miss Barnes was out, but her door was open and Helen slipped in, and writing a little note on her card, laid it conspicuously on the shining mahogany desk.

That was one invitation. She had given the other to a quiet, brown-eyed girl who sat next her in geometry, not from preference, but because her name came next on the cla.s.s roll. This girl declined politely, on the plea of another engagement.

Next day Miss Barnes brushed unseeingly past her in the hall of the Science Building. The day after that they met at gym. Finally, when almost a week had gone by without a sign from her, Helen inquired timidly if she had found the note.

"Oh, are you Miss Adams?" inquired Miss Barnes, staring past her with a weary air. "Thank you very much I'm sure, but I can't come," and she walked off.

Any one but Helen Adams would have known that Caroline Barnes and Eleanor Watson had the reputation of being the worst "sn.o.bs" in their cla.s.s, and that Miss Ashby, her neighbor in geometry, boarded with her mother and never went anywhere without her. But Helen knew no college gossip. She offered her invitation to two girls who had been in the dancing-cla.s.s, read hypocrisy into their hearty regrets that they were going out of town for Sunday, and asked no one else to the play. If she had been less shy and reserved she would have told Rachel or Betty all about her ill-luck, have been laughed at and sympathized with, and then have forgotten all about it. But being Helen Chase Adams, she brooded over her trouble in secret, asked n.o.body's advice, and grew shyer and more sensitive in consequence, but not a whit less determined to make a place for herself in the college world.

She would have attached less significance to Caroline Barnes's rudeness, had she known a little about the causes of Eleanor's headache. Eleanor had gone down to Caroline's on the afternoon of the play, knocked boldly, in spite of a "Don't disturb" sign posted on the door, and found the pretty rooms in great confusion and Caroline wearily overseeing the packing of her books and pictures.

Eleanor waited patiently until the men had gone off with three huge boxes, and then insisted upon knowing what Caroline was doing.

"Going home," said Caroline sullenly.