"It would break Betty all up if she knew it."
"But—don't you think——" hesitated the girl and, despite her bravest efforts, her eyes betrayed her deep distress.
Bob looked at her fixedly. "I say, you have a tender heart, Miss Thompson. What were you going to say?"
"I only meant—it seems unfair to—to—the girl," stammered Betty. "It puts her in a false position. Perhaps she has been spending a lot of money that she thought was hers."
"That's all right," declared Bob cheerfully. "Father and I will stand for it. We're pretty keen about Betty and—she's going to have everything she wants. So remember, if she shows up here, which she's apt to do, not a word about this, Miss Thompson."
"I'll remember," answered Betty, with a deeper meaning than her companion suspected.
Then there was silence again, broken only by the clicking of the machine.
"It's odd about Betty," Bob went on, half to himself. "I haven't seen her since she was a little tot about eleven. She was sailing for Europe."
Betty faced him with brightening eyes. "Really? You haven't seen her since then?"
He shook his head. "The last I saw of Betty was a little figure in a gray ulster and a Tam o' Shanter waving an American flag to me from the deck of a big steamer that was getting smaller every minute, while the lump in my throat was getting bigger."