“And you’d put me in there with four hundred pounds of tourist?” went on Irving. “Nay, nay, Betsy. I’ll get over there in the corner beyond you and promise to keep my place.”
“Oh, they’re going to start,” said Betsy in trepidation, “and—and she isn’t here. Couldn’t you get him to wait, Mr. Irving? I—”
Irving swung into the stage as the horses moved.
“My dear Betsy, we’ve ceased to be individuals. We’re part of a system,” he said as he seated himself beside her. “When the Park authorities say this stage moves, it moves.”
Betsy leaned back, her lip caught under her teeth and her expression so abstracted that Irving stared at her curiously.
“I do believe,” he said incredulously, “that Betsy Foster, clever Betsy, has fallen in love.”
“How you talk!” returned his companion, recovering herself; and being quite conscious of Rosalie and a little conscious of her fire-lit fancies, an astonishing color rose under her sallow skin.
Irving laughed. “After all these years, our sedate Betsy—”
“How you act, Mr. Irving!”