When she was ready for bed, she stood meditating a moment. And then: "Ranny has never struck me as one of the horrid, unforgiving sort of people. Has he you?"
"Oh, no," I said, and I made her get into bed. I covered her up. But it was no use; she threw back the eiderdown, and sat bolt upright.
"——asking me like that, at a ball, if I liked Captain Boyne best—a man I'd never seen before—don't you call it very rude?"
"No; only a little foolish——"
Another knock on the communicating door. "If you children keep on talking I shall have to come in."
We promised we wouldn't say another word. But more than once Betty began: "Ranny——"
"Sh!" I said.
The quarrel about the window had ended in our leaving it a couple of inches open, and the curtains looped back. As we lay there, the room grew brighter; so bright that every little treasure on the long, narrow shelf above each bed could be plainly seen. All the small vases and pictures and china animals—all the odds and ends we had cherished most since we were babies.
When Bettina had come in that night, the first thing she did was to clear a space for her cotillion favours. The moonlight showed the brilliant huddle of fan and bonbon-basket tied with rose-colour, and, most conspicuous of all, the silver horn hung with parti-coloured ribbons.
When we had lain quiet in our beds for ten minutes or so, Bettina pulled out a pillow from under her head, and propped it so that the moon couldn't shine any longer on the be-ribboned horn. And neither could Betty's eyes rest on it any more. She lay still for some time, and I was falling asleep, when I heard her bed creak. She had pulled herself half out of the covers, and was leaning over the pillow-barrier. She took the horn and the other favours, one by one, and with much gravity thrust them under the bed.