Betty took a sudden liking to the man from Montana. There was something very straightforward and businesslike about him, and his sulks were only natural under the circumstances.
“All right,” agreed Marie, having considered the proposal for a moment. “Only give me my saddle-pack. It might jog loose without your noticing, and it has my silver toilette things in it, and all my pictures of you, Fred.”
So Montana Marie O’Toole, bearing the precious possessions which, for reasons known only to herself, she had chosen to bring with her on her elopement, placidly took her seat in the tonneau, between Connie and Betty; and all the way home she chatted composedly, instructing Connie in the lore of automobiling—quite as if an early-morning elopement (that did not come off) was a part of her daily routine.
“Don’t you tell anybody about Fred and me,” she ordered Connie, when they were back at the Morton. “And say, take my rain-coat and empty it out, before the girls get a chance to see it and wonder what it means. I’m going to talk to Miss Wales.”
But once alone with Betty, she broke down and cried, dabbling at the tears with her magenta handkerchief.
“Maybe you think I don’t want to marry Fred,” she wailed. “Maybe you think I didn’t get Ma interested in American colleges on purpose so Fred and I could be nearer together. It takes two weeks for letters from the Bar 4 ranch to get to Paris. Think of the things that can happen on a ranch in two weeks. From Bar 4 to Harding is only four days. Of course a college in Montana would have been still better, but Ma would have seen through that. Oh, dear, what shall I do, Miss Wales?”
“Send your friend about his business, go home in June, tell your mother about your engagement,—if you are engaged,—and have a pretty wedding in your own home, when you and your family decide that it is best for you to be married.” Betty was trying hard to act the part of sensible, middle-aged adviser to heedless youth, though she felt extremely unequal to the rôle.
“That sounds lovely,” wailed Montana Marie, “but the trouble is, you don’t know Ma.”
“I know she’s very fond of you,” began Betty.
“But she’s a lot fonder of a ridiculous idea she’s got into her head of having me marry a duke, or a prince, or some other horrid little foreigner. That’s what she’s designed me for, ever since I was born and Pa struck it rich on the same day. She’s always thought it was a sort of providence. And my being in love with Fred doesn’t make the least particle of difference to her.” Marie sobbed again forlornly. “I ’most wish we had gone right on and got married this morning.”