“Betsy knows. I’ll tell you, too, ducky. I’d like to marry Mike.”
“Who?” he demanded, astonished.
“Mike Coltfoot, ducky. He makes a living. And I make Mom’s. There’s the hitch. Mom would have my life. And Mike would draw a corpse.”
Annan took her by both hands: “Bless your nice little heart,” he said, “I never dreamed that you and Mike cared for each other.”
“I don’t know how he feels; I only know how he says he feels,” she said cynically. “But, oh God, the fireworks if Mom gets next! Do you wonder I’m fed up with work?”
Betsy said: “I tell her that if she feels that way about her profession she’d better walk out on her mother and marry Mike. I follow what I love. Every person ought to.... By the way, what has become of Eris, Barry?”
“She has gone home for a rest,” he said carelessly.
“Where? Back to the pigs and cows?”
He reddened. “She’s gone to her home at Whitewater Farms.”
After he had departed, Betsy looked at Rosalind; her rosy mouth made a small oval.