Betsy’s nose went up. “Mind your business, Barry. If she works for me she needn’t worry.”
“You’d better take her on, then,” said Rosalind. “Mom bangs me around so that I’m too groggy to look out for anybody’s morals except my own.”
Betsy came up to Annan and put her hands on his shoulders:
“Let me see her; I shan’t eat her. I might use her. She’s a sandy kid.”
“She’s twenty. She told me so,” he retorted.
“It’s cruel to ship her back to the cows, Barry, when she’s gone through such a rotten novitiate. I think you’re taking a great responsibility if you use that easy and persuasive tongue of yours to send her back to the stupidity she ran away from. Don’t you?”
Rosalind said to her: “There’s no point in your pawing Barry Annan. I’ve done it. He lets you. Then he does what he pleases.”
Annan grinned faintly: Betsy suddenly slapped his face, not hard.
“That complacent smirk!” she said, exasperated.
Before Annan guessed what she was about, she turned and ran upstairs. He followed, too late. The guest-room door opened and slammed, and he heard the key turn inside.