"Then he said 'Indeed!' again. But when the girls got up to go and he bid
them each good-bye, he managed to keep Eleanor on some pretext about
wanting to finish an argument that they'd begun at dinner. Miss Ferris
kept me to know about a Hilton House girl who was down at the infirmary
when I was and finally had to be sent home; and as we stood talking at
the other side of the room, I distinctly heard Mr. Blake say, 'The editor
of "The Quiver," Miss Watson.'"

"Did Miss Ferris hear it too?"

"Probably not. Anyway it wouldn't mean anything to her. The next minute
Eleanor Watson was gone, and then I went too. Betty, we must run back
this minute. He's going to begin."

As far as her information about "The Tendencies of the Modern Drama" was
concerned, Betty Wales might quite as well have been enjoying herself at
"The Hand of Fate." She sat very still, between two girls she had never
seen before, and apparently listened intently to the speaker. As a matter
of fact, she heard scarcely a word that he said. Her thoughts and her
eyes were fixed on Eleanor, who was sitting with Beatrice Egerton, well
up on the middle aisle. Like Betty, she seemed to be absorbed in
following the thread of Mr. Blake's argument. She laughed at his jokes,
applauded his clever stories. But there was a hot flush on her cheeks and
a queer light in her eyes that bore unmistakable evidence to the struggle
going on beneath her forced attention.

After the lecture Betty was waiting near the door for Helen and Alice,
when Eleanor brushed past her.