"At Liverpool? Then you didn't think I'd gone for a holiday to the South Coast?"
Kit was embarrassed. It looked as if his mother had not used much tact, but Betty's smile was gentle.
"Sometimes you're rather nice, Kit, but all the same you ought to see I couldn't go."
"We won't talk about it," Kit replied. "When I came in you didn't look at all—surprised."
Betty gave him a calm glance, but he thought she had noted his hesitation. Surprised was not altogether what he had meant.
"I was not," she said. "I knew you were on board a ship that had just arrived. Then I heard you talking to Mr. Jefferson."
He pulled up a chair and studied her while she neatly folded some documents. Betty was thin, but if she had been ill, she was obviously getting better. A faint colour had come to her skin, and her eyes were bright. At Liverpool she had worn very plain, dark clothes, because they were economical; now her dress was white and she had pretty grey shoes. In fact, Betty was prettier than he had thought. Perhaps her escape from monotonous labour and the dark Liverpool office accounted for much, but she was not the tired girl he had known.
Kit looked about the room. There was not much furniture, and all was made of Canary pine that polishes a soft brown. The wall was yellow, and blue curtains hung across the arch; Kit knew they were needed to keep out the morning sun. A rug was on the floor, and it was like the curtains, the dull blue one saw in Morocco. Betty had fastened a spray of heliotrope in her white dress.
"Do you like my room?" she asked.
"It's just right. The strange thing is, I hadn't noticed this before; I don't think—Jefferson bothered about his office. Anyhow the room was his."