“If you believe I made any effort to deceive you, it is not worth while my telling you differently, is there?” Bettina said in a low voice. “I don’t know how it occurred; I was stupid, I know, but, as I started out of the Indian house this morning just as I got to the door, it closed and fastened on the outside. I tried to push it open but could not manage it.”
Mrs. Burton was sitting straight upright with her eyes fastened on Bettina’s.
“But, my dear child, that sounds ridiculous, you know. The door could not have latched itself; it was too crude and clumsy an affair. Besides, why did you not call out? We could not have gotten far away.” Always she had been too impatient with the people who did not think and act quickly, Polly Burton should have remembered. Also, she might have remembered the spirit in which she was apt to receive criticism when she was young. But this is another something which older persons forget.
“I did call,” Bettina replied. “But I think I was too surprised at first. Then I thought some one would surely come back and open it for me.”
“And Tewa did come?” Mrs. Burton asked.
The question was a distrustful and an unkind one, and there was a painful silence afterwards.
“Tewa did come, but not for some time afterwards. The house must have been empty until then, else I thought the Indian woman or Dawapa would have heard. But I did not mean them. I thought whoever closed the door—” Bettina answered, however, with no perceptible change in her voice.
“But who did close the door?”
Polly was sorry for her last question. Even if she did suspect Bettina of disobedience to her, and of a very obstinate determination to have her own way, she did not appreciate just how unlovely her own view of Bettina’s deception was, until she had given it expression.
“I am not sure,” Bettina replied. “Besides, I would rather not talk on the subject any more. Feeling as you do about me—and for what reason I don’t understand—I think I would rather go home as soon as you can arrange it for me.”