d. Only a few of the Chapin house girls knew anything about the
disposition of the valentine money, and not even the rest of the firm
had been told who had received it. So Betty had thought the secret
perfectly safe.

"No one told me about your private affairs," returned Eleanor
significantly. "I guessed and I congratulate you. The genius will be a
useful ally. She will get all the freaks' votes for you, when----"

"Eleanor Watson, come on if you're coming," called a voice from the foot
of the stairs, and Eleanor marched blithely off, without finishing her
sentence.

Betty stared after her with unseeing eyes. So that was it! She was to
blame because Jean had told her of Eleanor's predicament--told her
against her wish. And now she was supposed to be trying to get votes.

"Votes for what, I wonder? How perfectly absurd!" said Betty to the
brick wall she was facing. But the appropriate smile would not come, for
the absurdity had cost her a friend whom she had loved dearly in spite
of her faults.

CHAPTER XIV

A BEGINNING AND A SEQUEL

"I shan't be here to dinner Sunday," announced Helen Chase Adams with an
odd little thrill of importance in her voice.

"Shan't you?" responded her roommate absently. She was trying to decide
which dress to wear to the Hilton House play. Her pink organdie was
prettiest, but she really ought to save that for the Glee Club concert.
And should she ask her cousin Jack Burgess up from Harvard for the
concert, or would it be better to invite Mr. Parsons? These absorbing
questions left her small attention to bestow on so comparatively
commonplace a matter as an invitation out to Sunday dinner.

"I thought you might like to have some one in my place," continued
Helen, moving the pink organdie waist on to the same chair with the
batiste skirt.

Betty came to herself with a start. "I beg your pardon. I didn't see
that I had taken up all the chairs. I was trying to decide what to wear
to the dramatics."

"And I was thinking what I'd wear Sunday," said Helen.

It was so seldom nowadays that she obtruded her affairs upon any one's
notice that Betty glanced at her wonderingly. Her eyes had their starry
look, and a smile that she was futilely endeavoring to keep in the
background played around the corners of her mouth.

"I'm glad she's got over the blues," thought Betty. "Why, where are you
going?" she asked aloud.

"Oh, only to the Westcott House," answered Helen with an assumpti