Betty, as if the smile were contagious, found her own lips twitching.
"What—do you mean?"
"I mean that your fearless little tirade was just what I needed, my dear. I have expected everything and everybody to bend to my will and wishes. I suspect that's what's been the matter, too, all the way up. I thought once, long ago, I'd learned my lesson. But it seems I haven't. Here I am up to the same old tricks again. Will you come and—er—train me, Betty? I will promise to be very docile."
Betty did laugh this time—and the tension snapped. "Train"—the very word with which she had shocked her mother weeks before!
"Seriously, my dear,"—the man's face was very grave now,—"I want you to talk this thing over with your mother. I am a lonely old man—yes, old, in spite of the fact that I'm barely forty—I feel sixty! I want you, and I need you, and—notwithstanding your unflattering opinion of me, just expressed—I believe I can make you happy, and your mother, too. She shall have every comfort, and you shall have love and laughter and sympathy and interest, I promise you. Now, isn't your heart softening just a wee bit? Won't you come?"
"Why, of course, I—appreciate your kindness, Mr. Denby, and"—Betty drew a tremulous breath and looked wistfully into the man's pleading eyes—"it would be lovely for—mother, wouldn't it? She wouldn't have to worry any more, or—or—"
Burke Denby lifted an imperative hand. His face lighted. He sprang to his feet and spoke with boyish enthusiasm.
"The very thing! Miss Darling, I want you to go home and bring your mother back to luncheon with you. Never mind the work," he went on, as he saw her quick glance toward his desk. "I don't want to work. I couldn't—this morning. And I don't want you to. I want to see your mother. I want to tell her—many things—of myself. I want her to see me, and see if she thinks she could give you to me as a daughter, and yet not lose you herself, but come here with you to live."
"But I—I could tell her this to-night," stammered Betty, knowing still that, in spite of herself, she was being swept quite off her feet by the extraordinary enthusiasm of the eager man before her.
"I don't want to wait till to-night. I want to see her now. Besides,"—he cocked his head whimsically with the confident air of one who knows his point is gained,—"I want a magazine, and I forgot to ask you to get it for me last night. I want the February 'Research.' So we'll just let it go that I'm sending you to the station newsstand for that. Incidentally, you may come back around by your mother's place and bring her with you. There, now surely you won't object to—to running an errand for me!" he finished triumphantly.