"I shall wait forever, if you desire and be everlastingly grateful always," Allan said so fervently that Polly Burton, recalling her own youth had an emotion of sympathy and determined not to keep him waiting for her judgment for any great length of time.
Bettina's sitting-room door was open and the moment after she went in and stood looking about the room.
Youth was always hard to understand, even if it understood itself, which it never does.
Here was Bettina's little apartment as exquisite as any girl could dream of, or desire. The rugs were of a wonderful blue, the color she loved best, the walls more lightly colored, the furniture not the massive mahogany of most old southern houses, but of an English design, the famous Chippendale. Outside her windows Bettina had a view of the blue lagoon and the wider bay beyond. Yet she preferred to leave all this beauty and luxury and spend her life in the slums.
"Well, life is only an expression of human personality, and if Bettina is in earnest, she has the right to do what she wishes," Mrs. Burton thought, as she picked up one of the prints Bettina had asked her to examine.
As she stood holding it in her hand she heard Alice Ashton and Vera Lagerloff talking together in the adjoining room with the door between partly open.
"Don't you think, Vera, that one or the other of us should go at once to Aunt Patricia? I know she said neither of us was to come, but that does not alter our responsibility. She must need some one."
Mrs. Burton put down the picture she scarcely had seen and took a step forward, then paused.
"It is so impossible to think of Aunt Patricia as poor, isn't it? Ever since we have known her she has been lavishing her wealth in every direction, upon every one except herself. It is like her now to declare that she has paid the rent of our little New York apartment for a year and that we are not to think of making any changes before then. Don't you suppose we can persuade her to come and live with us for the present at least until she decides what she wishes to do permanently?" Vera suggested.
"Yes, but Aunt Patricia insists she is going to find work, that at last she is glad she never has had a gray hair. She seems really not to be so unhappy over the situation as we are for her. Her only fear apparently is that we shall take Tante into our confidence concerning her. And frankly this makes me uncomfortable! I think Tante should be told. But I shall leave you to talk the matter over with Aunt Betty. I am going to Boston in the morning. I shall see father and mother and ask them to go with me to Aunt Patricia's house, it is just outside of town. Then we can face the situation together."