She could not say, “Except that you seemed to prefer Jill’s society to mine,” and so complete the sentence; so she subsided into blushing silence, and Mr Gerard tactfully forbore to question.
“Don’t let there be any more ‘excepts’ or ‘buts,’ please! Take me on trust as Miles’ friend and—if you will allow me—your own. That is all I request.”
At this interesting moment the sound of a latchkey was heard in the front door, followed by voices and footsteps in the hall. Mr Gerard muttered something under his breath. What the exact words were Betty did not know, but they were certainly not indicative of pleasure. Then the door opened, and Miles entered, followed by Jill, who had met her brother soon after starting for her walk, and had escorted him back to the house.
She raised her eyebrows at the sight of Mr Gerard. Had he not refused to go out with her a few minutes before, on the score of letters to be written? Yet here he was, talking to Betty, with never a pretence of paper or ink in the room.
Jill came down to dinner an hour or two later, attired in her prettiest dress, with the little curl, which Jack naughtily termed the “War Cry,” artlessly displayed on her forehead. She did not care two pins about her brother’s partner, but it was her nature to wish to reign supreme with any man with whom she was brought into contact, so she was her most captivating self all the evening, and Will Gerard laid his hand on his heart and bowed before her, laughed at her sallies, and applauded her songs, as he had done every evening since his arrival, and Betty laughed and applauded in her turn, without a trace of the old rankling jealousy. “He talks to her, but he looks at me. He wants me to be his friend!” she told herself with a proud content.
For the first time for many a long year her dreams that night were in the present, instead of in the past.