Lynda went first to call upon Betty alone. If she were to be disappointed, she wanted time to readjust herself before she encountered other eyes. Betty Arnold, too, was alone in her sister’s drawing room when Lynda was announced. The two girls looked long and searchingly at each other, then Lynda put her hands out impulsively:
“It’s really too good to be true!” was all she could manage as she looked at the fair, slight girl and cast doubt off forever.
“Isn’t it?” echoed Betty. “Whew! but this is the sort of thing that ages one.”
“Would it have mattered, Betty, whether I was pleased or not?”
“Lynda, it would—awfully! You see, all my life I’ve been independent until I met Brace and now I want everything that belongs to him. His love and mine collided but it didn’t shock us to blindness, it awakened us—body and soul. When that happens, everything matters—everything that belongs to him and me. I knew you liked Mollie, and John is an old friend; they’re all I’ve got, and so you see if you and I hadn’t—liked each other, it would have been—tragic. Now let’s sit down and have tea. Isn’t it great that we won’t have to choke over it?”
Betty presided at the small table so daintily and graciously that her occasional lapses into slang were like the dartings of a particularly frisky little animal from the beaten track of conventions. She and Lynda grew confidential in a half hour and felt as if they had known each other for years at the close of the call. Just as Lynda was reluctantly leaving, Mrs. Morrell came in. She was darker, more dignified than her sister, but like her in voice and laugh.
“Mollie, I wish I had told you to stay another hour,” Betty exclaimed, going to her sister and kissing her. “And oh! Mollie, Lynda likes me! I’ll confess to you both now that I have lain awake nights dreading this ordeal.”
When Lynda met Brace that evening she was amused at his drawn face and tense voice.
“How did you like her?” he asked feebly and at that moment Lynda realized how futile a subterfuge would have been.
“Brace, I love her!”