“That means that in about ten minutes he’ll ask you what you’ve decided,” murmured Jim in her ear. “Haven’t you had enough of business for to-day, Betty? Let’s cut out and take a walk in Paradise before dinner. We can just about catch the sunset if we hurry.
“My eye, but it seems good to see you again,” Jim assured her warmly, as they scrambled down the path to the river. “And it seems good to see Paradise again, only it doesn’t look natural in its present uninhabited state. There ought to be a pretty girl in a pretty dress behind every big tree.”
Betty demanded the latest news of Eleanor, who was a very bad correspondent, and then burst forth with her own plans and perplexities.
“I think you should accept the Harding offer by all means,” Jim assured her soberly. “Only there’s one thing I ought to tell you. I’ve been trying for a week to screw my courage up to the point of confiding it to the peppery Mr. Morton. His beloved dormitory can’t possibly be finished in time for the opening of college.”
Betty looked her dismay. “He’ll be perfectly furious, Jim.”
“Can’t help it,” returned Jim firmly. “He comes up nearly every week, and at least once in ten minutes, while he’s here, he decides to enlarge or rebuild something. See how he upset everything to-day for your sewing-machines and typewriters and washing-machines. To-morrow some book-worm will get hold of him and suggest a library, and he’ll want us to design some patent bookcases and build a wing to put them in.” Jim looked Betty straight in the eyes. “You simply can’t hurry a good honest job. I’m likely to be hanging around here till Christmas.”
“As long as that?”
Jim nodded, still scrutinizing her face closely. “Of course I know it won’t make any difference to you, but it would make all kinds of difference to me, having you here. You can be dead sure of that, Betty.”
Betty smiled at him encouragingly. “You mean you want me to be here to protect you from the pretty girls in pretty gowns who will begin jumping out at you from behind the trees the day college opens?”
Jim shrugged his broad shoulders defiantly. “I’m not afraid of any pretty girls. I suppose it will be a fierce game going around the campus with no other man in sight, but I guess I can play it.”