But her style of dress was most unfortunate, as if it had been designed to call attention to her size. She wore a white blouse drawn in very tightly at the waist under a leather belt, bulging out below which a dark stuff skirt reached her ankles. Her hat was small and suited to an old lady, and her fair hair, which waved prettily about her ears, was drawn into a tight knob at her neck. And while the other school-girls wore attractive shoes with ribbon lacings, she wore ugly, pointed-toed, high-heeled boots which looked too tight and made her heavy step mincing at the same time.
Meadowcroft had not sufficient time to study her face to catch its expression—or, according to his sister, lack of expression. But he saw that though her face was large and square, it was not what is called plump. Rather, there was a flatness, a sort of Indian cast to her features. Her profile was good, with a clear-cut chin, and her color clear and fine. Perhaps, indeed, that sweet pink in her cheeks gave her a kindlier resemblance to the pretty posy whence her nickname had come than her size to its flaunting and rather inappropriate name.
Meantime, having passed the Phillips house, Betty Pogany turned and glanced shyly back. Tommy had left the kindlings he had been chopping and run down the lane on which his house stood to tell her that the lame gentleman at Mrs. Phillips’s wanted her to come to see him just as soon as she possibly could, and she felt pleased and rather excited. If only Aunt Sarah wouldn’t object too seriously. She would be sure to object and strenuously. Scarcely anyone in South Paulding liked Mrs. Phillips and Aunt Sarah couldn’t bear her, and if she had her way wouldn’t allow Betty to enter her house. But as the lady did a great deal of trading with Betty’s father, who was a hardware merchant, there was an even chance of her being allowed to accept the invitation given by Mrs. Phillips’s brother.
It proved more than even. Aunt Sarah, who was an extremely exacting woman and almost always had her way, told Betty that she certainly should not go a step, talked about Mrs. Phillips for a quarter of an hour, and upbraided the girl for wishing to enter the house of one who thought herself so much better than her neighbors. But that evening when she bade her brother forbid Betty to visit the mansion, George Pogany decided that if Mr. Meadowcroft wanted to see his daughter, she should go. She needn’t, however, let it interfere with her practising. She must wait until Saturday afternoon.
“Of course, father,” the girl assented seriously.
“But that doesn’t mean, I hope, that you’ll neglect Rosy, Betty?” he demanded. And Betty, who was highly elated, declared that she should of course go first to the Harrows’.
“Well, then, it’ll surely be a case of the lame, the halt, and the blind,” her father remarked facetiously.
“For my part, I don’t call a man that passes his days in a wheeled chair and rides out in a brougham lame. I should call him a cripple, just as everybody would if he didn’t live in the finest house in the country with that stuck-up Mrs. Phillips,” declared Miss Pogany severely.
Betty knew that it wasn’t a brougham but a victoria Mr. Meadowcroft drove in, and as Tommy had told her about the crutches, she believed the word lame admissible. But she said nothing. It was almost second nature to the girl to repress her thoughts and feelings. Perhaps it was long experience of repression that had molded her countenance to that impassive, Indian-like type which only Humphrey Meadowcroft had noticed.
But when she was alone in her room, as she undressed and prepared for bed, Betty Pogany sighed more than once, despite the fact that she had the coveted permission to call on the stranger whom Tommy found enchanting. It hurt her almost cruelly to have Aunt Sarah call him a cripple in that cold, scornful fashion. Furthermore, she knew that she had a number of very uncomfortable days before her. Had Betty’s father confirmed her decision, Aunt Sarah would have had nothing further to say. As it was, she would be very resentful; she would bring up the matter again and again and Betty would have no peace except while she was at school and during the evenings when her father wasn’t at the shop.