The slangy girl really was not. Annan, at the piano, pounding out a rag while Rosalind and Coltfoot danced, merely called out to her that the responsibility for Eris Odell was hers from that moment and if they ever found the girl in the river it was none of his doings.
Betsy smiled scornfully: “I’d trust that girl anywhere,” she said. “Some day a girl like Eris will teach you a few new steps in the merry dance of life, Barry.”
“What new steps?” He continued playing but looked curiously up at Betsy, who had come over beside him.
“You’re so cocksure of yourself,” she said, “aren’t you, dear?”
“You mean I’m a prig?”
“No, just a very clever, good-looking boy with kind instincts and a fatal facility. You think you’re real. You think you write realisms. You’ll come up against the real thing some day. Then——”
“Yes, yes, go on!”
“Why,” she said, smiling at him, “then you’ll bump your complacent head, my dear. That will be reality. And maybe you’ll know it again when you run into it. Maybe it will rid you of that bland grin.”
“That’s a melting smile, not a grin, darling,”—pounding away vigorously. “But tell me about this ‘real thing’ that I’m to crack my noodle on.”