"I will, I will," said Betty. She rose, and he rose also and took her hand in both of his. She felt an almost irresistible desire to put her head on his shoulder, for she was tired and depressed.
"Your attitude in the matter is the important thing to me," he said. "That is why I have spoken so emphatically. You are a child yet, in spite of your twenty-seven years and your admirable intelligence. This is practically your first trial, the first time you have been called upon to make a decision which, either way, is bound to have a strong effect on your character, and to affect still greater decisions you may be called upon to make in the future. You have only one defect; you are not quite serious enough—yet."
"I feel very serious just now," said Betty, with a sigh; and in truth she did, and her new-found sister was not the only thing that perplexed her.
"One of these days you will be a singularly perfect woman," he added, and then he dropped her hand and walked to the door. As he was about to open it, she touched his arm timidly.
"Will you come and see me on Sunday?" she asked. "I shall have been through a good deal between now and then, and I shall want—I shall want to talk to you."
"I will come," he said.
"Not before half-past four. My mother will be asleep then, and my cousin, Jack Emory, have gone home—there will be so many things I shall want to talk to you about."
"I shall be there at half-past four," he said. "Good-bye. Good-bye."
XI
Betty went home to her room and cried steadily for an hour. She would not analyze the complex source of her emotions, but addressed a bitter reproach to her father's shade; and she reassured herself by frankly admitting that it would give her pleasure to win the approval of Senator North.