"Careful? Why, mumsey, dear, when we get at those cabinets he may tell me a dozen times the earth is flat, if he wants to, and I won't so much as blink—if I think there's any danger of my getting cheated out of that cataloguing!"
CHAPTER XXII
ACTOR AND AUDIENCE
Helen did not go with her daughter to Denby House the second morning. Betty insisted that she was quite capable of taking the short trip by herself and Helen seemed nothing loath to remain at home. Helen never seemed, indeed, loath to remain at home these days—especially during daylight. In the evening, frequently, she went out for a little walk with Betty. Then was when she did her simple marketing. Then, too, was the only time she would go out without the heavy black veil. Betty, being away all day, and at home only after five o'clock, did not notice all these points at first. As time passed, however, she did wonder why her mother never would go out on Sunday. Still, Betty was too thoroughly absorbed in her own new experiences to pay much attention to anything else. Every morning at nine o'clock she left the house, eager for the day's work; and every afternoon, soon after five, she was back in the tiny home, answering her mother's hurried questions as to what had happened through the day.
"And you're so lovely and interested in every little thing!" she exclaimed to her mother one day.
"But I am interested, my dear, in every little thing," came the quick answer. And Betty, looking at her mother's flushed face and trembling lips felt suddenly again the tightening at her throat—that her success or failure should mean so much to mother—dear mother who was trying so hard not to show how poor they were!
For perhaps a week Betty reported little change in the daily routine of her work. She wrote letters, read from books, magazines, or newspapers, worked on the card-index record of correspondence, and sorted papers, pamphlets, and circulars that had apparently been accumulating for weeks.
"But I'm getting along beautifully," she declared one day. "I've got Mrs. Gowing thawed so she actually says as many as three sentences to a course now. And you should see the beaming smile Benton gives me every morning!"
"And—Mr. Denby?" questioned her mother, with poorly concealed eagerness.