“No, I haven’t, Mr. Morton,” Betty told him—for of course the noisy intruder was none other than Jasper Jones Morton, the Elusive Magnate of the European trip. “And I’m afraid she won’t come, because I had a letter from her yesterday saying that she was in bed with a cold.”
Jasper J. Morton’s smile clouded. “Too bad, too bad,” he muttered. “She’ll be disappointed. She likes going off on trips with me. We’ll have to send her a consolation present to-morrow. You’ll know what she’d like. Now, Miss B. A., I want some dinner at this famous tea-shop, and I want you to sit down and eat with me and tell me all about the business.” Mr. Morton threw back his head and laughed, as if he thought Betty Wales in business at the Tally-ho Tea-Shop the very best joke in the world.
Betty led him to a little table in a corner, that had opportunely been left vacant by two girls who were hurrying off to a senior play rehearsal. “But I can’t sit with you,” she explained, “because I’m waiting on people to-night. The regular waitress has sprained her ankle.”
“There’s one.” Mr. Morton waved his hand imperiously at Nora. “She can manage somehow. Sit down.”
But Betty was firm. She explained that the dinners were a new departure, that she was particularly anxious for every one to go away satisfied with the food and the service, and finally she promised to wait on Mr. Morton herself, and to come and talk to him later, when the crowd had thinned. Then she flew to the kitchen after Eugenia’s salads.
Mr. Morton watched her pick up the heavy tray. “Bless me, but she’s a worker!” he muttered audibly, to the vast amusement of two freshmen at the next table. “I supposed from what the little tomboy said that she was playing at business, but it seems she’s in earnest. How I do like to see people in earnest!”
When Eugenia Ford had finished her dinner, she intercepted Betty in a flying trip to the kitchen after a forgotten cup of coffee. “Isn’t that Mr. Jasper J. Morton of New York?” she asked. “I thought it must be, and so did Mr. and Mrs. Valentine, Susanna’s mother and father. They know him very well, but of course he won’t expect to see them here. Would you mind taking us over to speak to him? Why didn’t you tell me you knew the Mortons?”
“Why should I have told you that?” demanded Betty calmly. “The subject never came up. John Morton is engaged to one of my best friends.”
“Really!” Eugenia’s face was a study. “Well, come over and meet the Valentines.”
“Not till I’ve brought Dickie Drake’s coffee. Just a second, Dickie.” And she was off. It was a master-stroke on Betty’s part, to cap the information about the Mortons by showing her intimacy with Dickie Drake, who was a most exclusive senior. It was one thing to speak of her as Dickie—all the college did that—and quite another to address her directly by her nickname. But Betty was not trying to impress Eugenia—which was the reason why she succeeded so perfectly then and a moment later, when, having been duly introduced to the Valentines, she convoyed them and Eugenia across to Mr. Morton’s table.