"Happy!" scoffed Betty with superb disdain; "why, the man doesn't know what the word means."
"But perhaps he has seen—a great deal of trouble, dear." The mother's eyes were gravely tender.
"Perhaps he has. But is that any reason for inflicting it on other people by reflection?" demanded Betty, with all of youth's intolerance for age and its incomprehensible attitudes. "Does it do any possible good, either to himself or to anybody else, to retire behind a frown and a grunt, and look out upon all those beautiful things around him through eyes that are like a piece of cold steel? Of course it doesn't!"
"Oh, Betty, how can you!" protested the dismayed mother again.
But Betty, with a laugh and a spasmodic hug that ended in a playful little shake, retorted with all her old gay sauciness:—
"Don't you worry, mumsey. I'm a perfect angel to that man." Then, wickedly, she added as she whisked off: "You see, I haven't yet had a chance to poke even one finger inside of one of those cabinets!"
It was three days later that Betty, having put on her hat and coat at Denby House, had occasion to go back into the library to speak to her employer.
"Mr. Denby, shall I—" she began; then fell back in amazement. The man before her had leaped to his feet and started toward her, his face white like paper.
"Good God!—you!" he exclaimed. The next instant he stopped short, the blood rushing back to his face. "Oh, Miss Darling! I—er—I thought, for a moment, you were— What a fool!" With the last low muttered words he turned and sat down heavily.
Betty, to whom the whole amazing sentence was distinctly audible, lifted demure eyes to his face.