“Tell me,” persisted Horace, “I promise not to let him know. Is it a case of Dr Fell?”
“No,” said Betty, in a funny little tone of defiance, “for I do know. Besides the old reasons, just now I’m vexed with him for teasing Frances!”
Her remark, childish as it was, provoked no smile, but, on the contrary, an almost grave reply, as if the speaker were well considering his words.
“You are very, very fond of your elder sister, I see,” said he. “I suppose you have scarcely a thought apart from her?”
“Not a single one,” said Betty eagerly; then she stopped suddenly. “No, that isn’t quite true; just lately—well, for some little time, I have had a thought—some thoughts, that she doesn’t know about.” But no sooner had she uttered this sphinx-like speech than her cheeks grew crimson, painfully crimson. “Oh dear,” she exclaimed, “I wish I talked at all! I always say what I don’t mean to!”
Horace was regarding her with a very perplexed expression.
“Never mind,” he said. “Can’t you get into the way of thinking that it doesn’t matter what you say to me? I wish you would. I really am to be trusted, and—”
“What?” said Betty, the distress in her face beginning to fade.
“You don’t know,” he went on, “how I like being treated quite—naturally, as you sometimes honour me by doing—as if, so to say, you were beginning to think of me as—as an old friend.”
Almost before he had finished speaking Betty’s expression had undergone one of the sudden transformations so characteristic of her. It was all but radiant.