Lady Anstruthers rose with as involuntary a movement as if a strong hand had drawn her to her feet. She stood facing Betty, a pathetic little figure in her washed-out muslin frock and with her washed-out face and eyes and being, though on her faded cheeks a flush was rising.
“Oh, Betty!” she said, “I don't know what there is about you, but there is something which makes one feel as if you believed everything and could do everything, and as if one believes YOU. Whatever you were to say, you would make it seem TRUE. If you said the wildest thing in the world I should BELIEVE you.”
Betty got up, too, and there was an extraordinary steadiness in her eyes.
“You may,” she answered. “I shall never say one thing to you which is not a truth, not one single thing.”
“I believe that,” said Rosy Anstruthers, with a quivering mouth. “I do believe it so.”
“I walked to Mount Dunstan,” Betty said later.
“Really?” said Rosy. “There and back?”
“Yes, and all round the park and the gardens.”
Rosy looked rather uncertain.
“Weren't you a little afraid of meeting someone?”