uiver in her voice. "I
never rode in a private car. But--it's no matter. Thank you, Miss
Stuart."

Eleanor had listened to the conversation with a curl of her lip for the
stupid child who proffered her request in so unconvincing a manner, and
an angry resentment against the authorities who should presume to
dictate times and seasons. "They ought to have a system of cuts," she
thought. "That's the only fair way. Then you can take them when you
please, and if you cut over you know it and you do it at your peril.
Here everything is in the air; you are never sure where you stand----"

"What can I do for you, Miss Watson?" asked the registrar pleasantly.

Eleanor got her chapel card and hurried home to telegraph her father for
permission to go to Bermuda, and, as she knew exactly what his answer
would be, to write Caroline that she might expect her. "You know I
always take a dare," she wrote. "My cuts last semester amounted to twice
as much as this trip will use up, and if they make a fuss I shall just
call their attention to what they let pass last time. Please buy me a
steamer-rug, a blue and green plaid one, and meet me at the Forty-second
Street station at two on Friday."

Betty knew nothing about Eleanor's plans, beyond what she had been able
to gather from chance remarks of the other girls; and that was not much,
for every time the subject came up she hastened to change it, lest some
one should discover that Eleanor had told her nothing, and had scarcely
spoken to her indeed for weeks. When Eleanor finally went off, without a
sign or a word of good-bye, Betty discovered that she was dreadfully
disappointed. She had never thought of the estrangement between them as
anything but a temporary affair, that would blow over when Eleanor's
mortification over the debate was forgotten. She had felt sure that long
before the term ended there would come a chance for a reconciliation,
and she had meant to take the chance at any sacrifice of her pride. She
was still fond of Eleanor in spite of everything, and she was sorry for
her too, for her quick eyes detected signs of growing unhappiness under
Eleanor's ready smiles. Besides, she hated "schoolgirl fusses." She
wanted to be on good terms with every girl in 19--. She wanted to come
back to a spring term unclouded by the necessity for any of the evasions
and subterfuges that concealment of the quarrel with Eleanor and Jean
Eastman's strange behavior had brought upon her. And now