“How do you know?” She was quite willing to be convinced.
“How do I know?” The words issued, delicately scented, from dabs of powder. “Just as if it depended on him. Just as if any woman—who hasn’t a harelip—can’t marry any man she wants.”
Thus turned, in a twinkling, from a diagnostician into a “case,” Mrs. Mills tried to cover her confusion with a little laugh. But it was so self-conscious she might as well have made oral confession. Being an honest person, she owned up with a hug.
Meanwhile, having been captured by Betty as he emerged from his bedroom dressed and refreshed by a cooling shower, Gordon was being subjected to an equally keen if less discreet examination.
Betty’s major premise agreed marvelously with Lee’s and was stated with the startling directness of childhood after a prolonged survey of the subject from different distances and points of view. “I like you—only not so well as Bull. You’re nicer-looking, but—” A long pause emphasized more powerfully than words how woefully he fell short in other ways. “I’m going to marry him when I grow up—that is, if mother doesn’t beat me to it!”
“Any danger of that?” Gordon laughed.
“You bet there is. Bull’s dead in love with her, and she—of course, she doesn’t admit it, but I know.”
“Well, well, isn’t that fine!” Gordon really meant it. “Congratulations, I suppose, are not yet in order.”
“I should say not!” Betty’s blue eyes widened with horror. “Don’t you dare! I’m not too big, yet, to be spanked”—she wriggled, reminiscently—“and when mother’s real mad she goes the limit. Nevertheless, it’s true.” After a second calculating survey, she concluded, “But if she grabs Bull, I might marry you.”
“If you only will,” he pleaded, “I’ll be so-o good! Can’t we consider ourselves engaged?”