“No, human question-point,” Betty told her severely. “With Jim.”
CHAPTER XXI
THE END OF BETTY WALES
“Wait till I get home from Germany!” repeated Jim, when he had explained that he was sailing in ten days, and Betty had explained that getting ready to be married takes ages and ages. “Never mind a trousseau! Never mind a linen chest! Never mind even a wedding dress! Let’s just be married. That’s the best way, I think, no matter how much time you’ve got. We can run over to Paris—we shall probably have to anyway—and you can shop there while I work. You can do anything you like all the rest of your life, if you’ll only marry me some day next week. Honestly now, Betty, do you care about the fuss of weddings?”
“N-o,” confessed Betty hesitatingly. “I guess not. I’m rather tired just now of all kinds of fuss and complications and crowds.”
“Then will you marry me some day next week?” asked Jim again with his broadest, most persuasive smile.
“Yes, I will,” said Betty Wales, and that matter was definitely settled.
“I think ends are frightful,” Betty confided to Madeline, who was helping her pack up on the day after commencement. “I’m glad I’ve got to hurry, because it will soon be over—the end of Betty Wales. Ends are frightful, because you have to finish everything up just so. No more chances to try again, or smooth things over, or change to something else. And a messy person like me has so many silly little odds and ends to attend to.”
“Such as?” queried Madeline, absently packing a brass candlestick on top of Betty’s best hat.
Betty rescued the hat skilfully. “Since I’m not going to have any bride things to speak of I must save what I’ve got,” she explained. “Oh, odds and ends like seeing that the shy, homely girls on the summer employment list get positions right away, because the new secretary mightn’t think they were good for much; and seeing that Emily Davis isn’t putting herself out too much by staying on for a while to coach Georgia; and trimming Nora’s little niece’s hat, as I’ve done every summer, until she’s gotten to depend on it; and saying good-bye to the Stocking Factory people that I know best; and—oh, dozens of silly little things like those.”
“Incidentally you’ve got to decide on a wedding day, haven’t you?”