There were only five seniors at the Belden,—a state of affairs by no means without its compensations for the juniors who lived in the same house. There are decided advantages, connected with second helpings of ice cream and the possibility of having hot toast for breakfast, enjoyed by the girl who sits at the head of a table at meal times. This is ordinarily a senior privilege, but Mary Brooks was disqualified because she was never by any chance on time to serve breakfast, and another of the five spent all her Sundays with friends in town, and so was too irregular at meals to take her turn. One can easily get too much of even a good thing, and the other three, not caring for the continuous responsibility of being “heads,” gave up their places every second month to the juniors, who crowed over their classmates in other houses where seniors were more numerous or more tenacious of their rights. And this was not all. If the matron or the house-teacher wanted to entertain the senior contingent, it was often easier to ask with them the juniors in the house than to select a few seniors from outside to make up a party of the right dimensions.
So the Belden House juniors were not at all surprised and very much pleased to find that Mrs. Kent and Miss Andrews had decided to ask them to the annual house faculty-party, to which usually only the seniors were invited. Roberta Lewis, to be sure, being shy by nature and new to campus life, declared that she could not and would not go, and laid elaborate plans for having a headache or a sprained ankle. But even Roberta put aside her fears and resolved to venture down with Mary, when it was announced that the ice cream was to be chocolate parfait, and that the blasé Dr. Eaton had overpowered every one by sending an acceptance,—instead of his usual stereotyped regrets,—to the Belden House faculty-party.
“Do you suppose he’ll say anything about Georgia?” asked Roberta eagerly, as she helped Mary to dress.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Mary absently, patting a refractory lock of hair into place, “but I don’t much care what he talks about, so long as he talks to me. You juniors needn’t think you can monopolize him just because you take his work.”
“You always monopolize Dr. Hinsdale,” retorted Madeline, who was waiting, so she said, to go down-stairs under Mary’s protecting wing. “At the last Dramatic Club reception he didn’t so much as speak to any one else.”
“Well, neither did I, for that matter,” said Mary thoughtfully, “so why don’t you say he monopolized me? It sounds very much better.” She gave a final glance into the mirror. “I shan’t let Dr. Eaton monopolize me,” she added as she went out, “but I shan’t let him monopolize any one else either.”
Mary was a great favorite with most of the faculty, for the simple reason that she stood not at all in awe of them, but chattered on to the learned Miss Ferris or the dignified Professor Lawrence just as spontaneously as if they had been Harvard freshmen or members of the clan. Mrs. Kent was a great admirer of Mary’s social gifts, and knowing that her supply of small talk never failed her, she seized upon her the minute she appeared and turned her over to the new German professor, who was stranded in a corner, looking sadly at the gay groups around him and wishing himself and his scant knowledge of English safe back in the Fatherland. Mary put him at his ease immediately, for her German was a trifle worse than his English; and in trying to set her right and supply the words she could not remember he forgot his own mistakes. He was soon cozily ensconced in a nook under the stairs, eating chocolate parfait and trying to understand why he must not ask a young lady’s permission “to hold her a few moments after the class.” Mary, for her part, was so absorbed in her efforts to explain the subtle difference between hold and keep that she had entirely forgotten Dr. Eaton, and she and her escort were probably the only persons in the room who did not stop talking to stare at him when he came in. Mrs. Kent looked anxiously around for Mary to take this distressingly haughty young man off her hands, but the stairs screened her and her German, and Mrs. Kent flew to Betty Wales, who was having a beautiful time talking to her beloved Miss Ferris.
“Come, child,” she said, “and amuse the melancholy Dane. You girls all seemed to be delighted because he was coming, but for my part I can’t see why. I’ll take care of Miss Ferris, but I can’t and won’t talk to him any longer.”
So Betty rose obediently and was duly presented to Dr. Eaton, who to her astonishment came immediately out of his melancholy and received the introduction with evident pleasure. He smiled his rare smile as he shook hands, and when Betty asked him if he wanted an ice he seized two from a passing waitress in a summary fashion that bespoke much experience with afternoon teas. It couldn’t be that he was a woman-hater, Betty decided.
“I wish I could find you a seat,” he said, glancing down the long hall. “Ah, I have it! Is that little room off there forbidden territory?” As the little room was Mrs. Kent’s parlor, which was always opened for house teas, Betty led the way there and sat down, wondering why in the world Dr. Eaton had “wanted to meet her for a long time,” and what in the world they should find to talk about.
Dr. Eaton settled the second question easily enough. “Well,” he began, drawing a chair nearer to the one that Betty had chosen, “has your mother gone?”
“Yes,” answered Betty in amazement, “she went to-day.” (Mrs. Wales and the smallest sister had started that morning for Chicago.) “But how, please, did you know anything about my mother?”
“I had a note from her,” answered Dr. Eaton calmly, “so I knew that she had been here; and as it was some little time ago, I naturally concluded that she might have left. It really wasn’t difficult.”
Betty stared at him in utter bewilderment and blushing confusion. Her mother had never been to Harding. And what could she have written about to Dr. Eaton? Ever since her father’s famous telegram to the registrar at the beginning of her freshman year, Betty had lived in dread of some similar breach of college etiquette on the part of her parents. Now it had come. Her mother had probably asked Dr. Eaton to give shorter lessons.
She faced the issue boldly. “I didn’t know that mother had written you,” she said. “What did she want?”
“She thinks that ten-minute tests are spoiling your constitution,” answered Dr. Eaton gravely.
“Oh, dear!” Betty’s chagrin was comical. “That’s exactly like her. Isn’t it queer that mothers and fathers can’t understand that a college is different from a boarding-school?”
“Very queer,” agreed Dr. Eaton, smiling again. “So you didn’t put her up to writing the letter?”
“Of course not,” said Betty indignantly.
“Oh, I knew you didn’t do it on your own account,” Dr. Eaton assured her. “It’s easy to see that ten-minute tests don’t bother you; but I thought you might have been working for your friends.”
Betty looked hard at Dr. Eaton to see if he was laughing at her. “What do you mean by saying that writing isn’t hard for me?” she demanded at last. “It’s very hard indeed, and I do it very badly. I know, for you’ve told me so on almost every paper.”
“I’ve told you so on almost every paper?” repeated Dr. Eaton uncomprehendingly.
All at once an explanation of their conversation at cross-purposes flashed across Betty. “Dr. Eaton,” she said, “you must have confused me with some one else. Who do you think I am?”
“You are Miss Georgia Ames,” announced Dr. Eaton with calm conviction.
“Oh, no, I’m not,” gasped Betty, and then, as the absurdity of the situation struck her, she was overcome by laughter.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, when she could speak, “but you can’t imagine how funny it is that I should be taken for Georgia Ames. If you only knew me, and—and—Georgia, you’d appreciate the joke.”
“Very likely I should,” assented Professor Eaton genially. “As it is, I’m very much puzzled. In class I have always supposed that you were Miss Ames, and just now, when Mrs. Kent introduced me, I was sure she said Ames.”
“Wales and Ames do sound a little alike,” admitted Betty, “but that’s the only similarity between us.” Then she laughed again. “It’s too bad that you can’t meet Georgia, when you’ve wanted to so long. But she doesn’t live in this house.”
“No?” said Dr. Eaton absently. “But what puzzles me is to think who she can be,—if she really isn’t you. What does she look like, Miss Wales?”
Betty hesitated. “Why, she—she’s very good-looking,” she stammered, “fine-looking, I mean, and she—she dresses very well indeed. She always carries handkerchiefs with real lace on them,” finished Betty swiftly.
“That just reminds me,” remarked Dr. Eaton, setting his ice cream plate on the table with a thud. “I have a handkerchief that belongs to her in one of my pockets this minute. It had lace on it, too. She dropped it one day in my classroom and I picked it up to give to the janitor and then forgot all about it. I mustn’t fail to return it to-morrow.”
“Do,” advised Betty, trying hard to keep sober. “She might want it.”
“But you haven’t told me much about her looks,” pursued Dr. Eaton. “Is she tall or short?”
“She—why, she’s medium, I should think,” invented Betty hastily. “Really, Dr. Eaton, I never noticed her particularly.” Just then Betty’s eyes fell on Roberta, who was standing alone near the door of Mrs. Kent’s room. “Wait a minute,” she commanded, “and I’ll get Roberta Lewis. She knows Georgia pretty well, and she’s very good at description. I know I’m particularly bad at it, for you’ve said so repeatedly yourself.”
Roberta was overwhelmed by the idea of having to talk to Dr. Eaton, but she came in perforce, and stayed long enough to describe Georgia in detail and with considerable picturesqueness.
Dr. Eaton listened intently. “It’s odd,” he said, “I can’t place Miss Ames at all—but then my classes are very large.”
“Is she an especially interesting girl?” asked Betty, squeezing Roberta’s hand.
“She writes extremely well,” answered Dr. Eaton stiffly, and the subject was dropped.
“I suppose,” Betty explained, telling the story to “The Merry Hearts” that evening, “he realized all of a sudden that he oughtn’t to be discussing her so frankly with us. Of course he shouldn’t, if she was a real person.”
“You don’t think he suspects anything?” asked Rachel.
“No, indeed,” declared Betty. “He was just as serious as could be, wasn’t he, Roberta?”
“It’s funny to me that the girls don’t any of them see through her,” said Katherine.
“Therein,” declared Madeline proudly, “lies the merit of the idea. Second selves are not common enough to be suspected.”
“I only hope,” put in Betty, “that Dr. Eaton will remember whose mother it was that wrote the foolish letter. Helen’s ‘touch’ seems to have impressed him more than anything else.”
“Don’t you think,” said Madeline, “that several of you are neglecting your duties to Georgia? Betty, you haven’t done anything yet.”
“Haven’t I?” exclaimed Betty in great indignation. “Didn’t I have to impersonate her for at least ten minutes, and then endure Dr. Eaton’s disappointment when he found that I wasn’t Georgia after all?”
“And Mary was her first victim,” said Katherine, “if you count that.”
“I certainly do,” Madeline assured her, smiling engagingly at the president.
“How about you, Rachel?” went on Katherine. “Have you contributed anything to the spreading of Georgia’s fame?”
“Indeed I have,” declared Rachel. “I sent her an invitation to Clio Club’s open meeting, when I wanted it dreadfully for some one else.”
“And she sent you a note of thanks, and attended the meeting in the person of her better half,” said Madeline.
“Then I am the only delinquent,” sighed Katherine, “and I promised to do something startling before long.”
Her opportunity came that very evening. On her way home to the Westcott she met little Alice Waite, in great distress because she had two men on her hands for the Glee Club Concert.
“I asked one of them away back last summer,” Alice explained, “and he was coming, but last week he found that he couldn’t, so I asked the other. To-day the first one telegraphed that he should be here after all, and the second one wrote that he should be delighted to come. It’s dreadfully stupid, entertaining two men who are strangers to each other, and it’s so late that all the girls I know have men of their own. Have you one, K.?”
“No,” said Katherine, “I’m happy to say that I haven’t. Men frighten me to death.”
“Oh, do take one of mine,” begged Alice.
Katherine was obdurate. “I love you, gentle Alice, but not to that extent,” she said. Then she had a sudden inspiration, and recklessly she made use of it. “But I know a girl who’ll take your extra man,” she went on. “She’s a freshman, but she’s awfully clever and amusing. Her name is Georgia Ames.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of her,” cried Alice eagerly. “I was over at the Westcott the night some lovely violets were sent there for her by mistake. She must be awfully popular. How do you know she hasn’t a man of her own?”
“Because I do,” said Katherine sturdily.
“But I don’t know her,” objected Alice.
“Well, I do. I’ll explain and I promise you that it will be all right. If Georgia takes your man he’ll have the time of his life.”
“But she—she wouldn’t care which man she had?” asked Alice anxiously.
“Indeed she will care,” teased Katherine. “She will prefer the one you don’t want.”
“Then it’s all settled,” cried Alice. “You see it is dreadfully awkward because——”
“I see,” Katherine cut her short. “There was a little quarrel, but now it’s made up, and Man Number Two is very much in the way.”
Alice blushed and laughed, but did not deny it. “You must take me to call on Miss Ames,” she said. “But first please explain what I want, and be sure to tell her that I have splendid seats for her. I shall write Tom to-night that he’s going with a regular belle.”
“Say anything you like about her,” encouraged Katherine. “You can’t exaggerate when you’re praising Georgia.”
Next day she sought out Rachel. “I’m in a fix,” she explained. “I’ve boosted Georgia too hard. All the rest of you tell your little tales and then find a hole to crawl out of. But as far as I can see, I’ve got to produce my Georgia.”
“Oh, no,” said Rachel, when she had heard the whole story. “Have her send Alice a note to say that she has been called away from college for the week.”
“And take the man myself?” asked Katherine. “Not by any means.”
Rachel considered. “Of course it would be against the rules of the game to leave Alice in the lurch, but perhaps Betty will take him. I heard her say that her concert man had broken his collar-bone and couldn’t come.”
So Georgia wrote Alice that she had been having bad headaches, for which her doctor prescribed a week of rest on a farm outside Harding. She was extremely sorry to miss the concert, but her dear friend Betty Wales had promised to help Alice out in her stead.
Alice hurried straight over to Betty to say how glad she was. “I’d a lot rather have you take Tom,” she declared. “I was worried about Miss Ames. Lots of people seem to know about her, but no one really knows her except you and Katherine. I think she must be just a little queer, and Tom hates queerness.”
“Well, she is a little bit queer,” admitted Betty, trying hard not to laugh.
“There’s just one thing——” Alice puckered her smooth forehead as she tried to settle it. “Betty,” she ventured at last, “now tell me honestly, do you mind if I slur over your name and let Tom Alison think it’s Ames, if he wants to? You see I had to explain that I wasn’t going to take him to the concert myself, and it was a little awkward; so I told him what a fine girl he was going with,—how pretty and popular she was, and all that. It just fits you, Betty, and it does seem as if I couldn’t write it all over and think of new things to say.”
“Oh, Alice,” laughed Betty, “it’s too absurd. You see—oh, if you knew Georgia you wouldn’t suggest such a thing.”
“You mean she is the kind that wouldn’t like it?” asked Alice anxiously. “But couldn’t you explain it to her, Betty? Tell her how busy I am, and how I hate to write notes, and how I praised her to Tom until I haven’t any adjectives left. Couldn’t you?”
Betty considered, still laughing with a heartiness that puzzled Alice. “Why, perhaps I could,” she said at last. “Georgia is awfully good-natured. I think she would understand, and of course my feelings don’t count at all, so long as Mr. Alison has some one to take him to the concert.”
Next day, after consulting the rest of “The Merry Hearts,” Betty told Alice that Georgia understood, and so it happened that Tom Alison went back to Yale the day after the concert singing the praises of Miss Georgia Ames to all who would listen to his rapturous eulogies. Inquiries about her came back to Harding from brothers, cousins and friends at Yale. Also Mr. Tom Alison sent a box of Huyler’s to Miss Ames at the Belden, accompanying it with an invitation to the Yale prom.
Betty took the note and the candy over to Alice. “See what you’ve done,” she said, with a face that was sober, all but the eyes. “Of course I can’t keep them. They belong to the real Georgia—the one you wrote the note about. You must take them to her.”
“Oh, Betty, I couldn’t,” said Alice in great distress. “She would have to acknowledge them somehow, and that means that she would have to explain to Tom.”
“You mean you would have to,” said Betty severely. “Well, which is worse—for you to explain or for me to? If I answered, I should have to tell him how it was just as much. I know a lot of Yale men, and I can’t go to the prom. as Georgia Ames.”
“But you can decline,” suggested Alice desperately.
“Do you think it’s quite fair to make me do that?” inquired Betty judicially. “Of course, when he finds out, he may not want to take me; but I think he’ll see the joke. Oh, Alice, it’s too delicious! There isn’t any Georgia Ames.”
“What?” gasped Alice.
“Why,—you mustn’t tell a soul, but I’ve got to make you understand,—she’s only Madeline Ayres’s second self.”
“Madeline’s what?” asked Alice.
Betty repeated. “Well, that’s what Madeline calls her. She’s a fictitious person, you know. Madeline invented her, and we have had lots of fun making people believe she was real.”
“But—why—she gets letters and violets and notes on the bulletin board,” protested Alice.
“Yes, and she makes calls and drops handkerchiefs and takes English Essayists,” added Betty, “but you see this is how we manage her.” She explained the methods of “The Merry Hearts” and the bewilderment of Dr. Eaton. “So this isn’t the first time that I’ve been Georgia,“ she concluded. “Now do you think Mr. Alison will forgive me? Because he says in his note that he’s coming to call next Wednesday, and I might try to explain then, instead of writing.”
Needless to say, Mr. Alison forgave the fair conspirators. More than that, he was delighted with Georgia and promised to make her fairly famous at Yale. He had just received a composite picture of his sister’s crowd at school, and he got Betty to write “Georgia Ames” and the date on the back of it. The composite Georgia was a very pretty girl, and the slightly blurred effect was artistic and at the same time decidedly suggestive of Georgia’s elusive personality. Mr. Alison promised to send for more copies of Georgia’s picture for distribution among “The Merry Hearts.”
He was all the more interested because it seemed that Dr. Eaton was a friend of his older brother William, and Tom insisted upon having all the details of Georgia’s career in “English Essayists” in order that he might write to William, who was surveying a railroad route in Arizona, all about the joke on his old chum.
Betty had not been particularly interested in Georgia until the day of the faculty tea. Her interview with Dr. Eaton then and the subsequent adventure with Alice and Tom Alison aroused her imagination, and she entered into the plans for Georgia’s future as eagerly as Mary or Roberta. Even now, however, Mary accused her of being interested, not in Georgia, but in Dr. Eaton. To be sure Mary’s theory was largely founded on envy. She had thoroughly enjoyed the faculty tea, but she had not succeeded in meeting Dr. Eaton, who had left as soon as he finished his conversation with Betty. He had walked home with Ethel Hale, as Betty knew, because she had been bidding Ethel good-bye at the door, when he came up and, saying he believed they went the same way, asked permission to walk along with her.
“Thank you,—it’s not at all necessary,“ Ethel had said, “but do as you wish.” Dr. Eaton had looked hurt, Betty thought, but he went out with Ethel nevertheless.
“I don’t see why Ethel doesn’t like him,” Betty reflected. “I think he’s awfully nice, when he tries to be. And Ethel isn’t a blue-stocking like some of the women on the faculty. She likes men and good times just as well as we girls do.”