“But why did she start if she didn’t have enough money?” demanded Betty.
“Wudn’t you, dearie, if you was dyin’ and knew it?”
“Ah, here you are. Are you ready to go back?” The senator had pumped his audience dry, and remembered Betty. “Well, how is it? Do they complain of the service?” he asked, as they went back to the upper deck.
“The service—oh, I’m so sorry! I hadn’t gotten around to ask them,” said Betty meekly, and then burst out with the stories she had heard.
The senator listened intently, and his keen eyes grew soft, as he fumbled for his pocketbook. “That’s the point, my dear young lady,” he said soberly. “After all, what are two weeks’ comfort or discomfort to people as poor as most of those? I saw a miserable fellow, too,—sick and discouraged, taking his motherless children back home before he dies. But your girl is worse off. Give her this. It will help a little.”
Betty gasped at the size of the bill, but the senator murmured something about wanting to smoke and hurried off, and there was nothing to do but go back to the others. She was the last of the quartette to reach the rendezvous.
“Two minutes late,” called Madeline as she appeared.
“That’s lucky,” laughed Betty, tucking her rug in, “because I couldn’t possibly decide where to go from Glasgow—I don’t know enough about the geography of Scotland—and my story is perfectly sure to take the prize.”
“H’m!” said Babe doubtfully. “I saw you. You needn’t be puffed up because you leaned over the railing and talked to a live senator. I’ve been talking to a live actress—there’s a whole company of them on board, Madeline, and you’ve never discovered them.”
“Which is she?” asked Babbie. “The stunning woman with the blue velvet suit?”