“Larry says that the celebration will not be complete unless we exchange hearts. So that is the next thing on the program. Who wants my heart?”
There was laughter and quick compliance. But Larry was already detaching a heart from the little array which Betty wore and whispered, “That was by way of an excuse to get one of these, Betty. Do you mind?”
“You may have them all, Larry,” laughed Betty, stirred, nevertheless. Oh, this couldn’t be just his “line,” as she had once thought! He liked her. She knew he did.
“And where is the one I am supposed to have?” she asked, as Larry tucked the little pink heart in his inner pocket.
“It’s beating not far away,” said Larry in her ear. But he detached a small heart that had dangled from his lapel all evening and handed it to her.
“No,” said she, “badge me with it.”
It all had to be with the air of badinage and fun, in the presence of so many, but Larry, under cover of fastening his heart in the place of the one he had detached, and under the louder buzz of conversation and the laughter, spoke once more into her ear.
“You darling! I hope this means half as much to you as it does to me!” A hand crept over hers in her lap and held it tightly for a long moment, while Betty returned a slight pressure.
Then things were as they were before. Larry gave some attention, as he had done before, to the university girl who sat on his other side. Betty talked to Kathryn and Bradford, but she “felt like somebody else,” as she confided to her diary the next day. An entirely new probability was hers, and a new faith in Larry Waite.
But Larry did not take her home. After the supper he told her that as soon as “they” began to go, he would be waiting for her and would take her home in “the roadster.” But he had scarcely finished telling her when Marcella came up and soberly said that a telegram had come for their father and that he wanted to see Larry right away. With a brief “Excuse me,” Larry hurried off, while Betty wondered why anybody would send a telegram so late, unless it was a case of life or death! The older Waites had disappeared not long after the guests had all been received. Could they still be up?