"Indeed, I don't! Oh, he was there, but he was no wonder, mother, dear. The wonder was cabinet after cabinet filled with jades and bronzes and carved ivories and Babylonian tablets and— But I couldn't begin to tell you! I couldn't even begin to see for myself, for, of course, I had to say something to Mr. Denby."
"Of course! And tell me—what was he—he like?"
"Oh, he was just a man, tall and stern-looking, and a little gray. He's old, you know. He isn't young at all"—spoken with all the serene confidence of Betty's eighteen years. "He has nice eyes, and I imagine he'd be nice, if he'd let himself be. But he won't."
"Why, Betty, what—what do you mean?"
Betty laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh, mother, dear, you'd have to see him really to know. It's just that—that he's so used to having his own way that he takes it as a matter of course, as his right."
"Oh, my dear!"
"But he does. It shows up in everything that everybody in that house does. I could see that, even in this one day I was there. Benton, Sarah (the maid), Mrs. Gowing (the old cousin housekeeper)—even the dog and the cat show that they've stood at attention for Master Burke Denby all their lives. You just wait till I get my chance. I'll show him somebody that isn't standing at salute all the time."
"Betty!" There was real horror in the woman's voice this time.
Again Betty's merry laugh rang out.