“Tell it all, dear!”
“I will. Mr. Doane must know the facts. The man was kissing her. He offered no apology. And Betty was defiant. She seemed then to fear the man would not appear again, but in some way she found him this afternoon out in the side street. They must have been there together for some time, walking back and forth, talking earnestly. I had other things to do, of course. I couldn't devote all my time to watching her. And it would seem, if she had any normal sense of... I secured a promise then from Betty that she would not meet him again until after your return. The man, however, would promise nothing.”
On few occasions in her intensely busy life had Mrs. Boatwright been so voluble. But she was excited and perhaps a little prurient; for to such severe self-discipline as hers there are opposite and sometimes equal reactions.
“Something must be done, and at once.” She appeared to be bringing her speech to a conclusion. “The man impressed me as persistent and quite shameless. He is unquestionably exerting a dangerous power over the girl. Even in times like these, I am sure that you, as her father, will feel that a strong effort must be made to save her. I needn't speak of the whispers that are already loose about the compound.”
Through all this, Doane, his face wholly expressionless except for a stunned look about the eyes and perhaps a sad settling about the mouth, looked quietly from wife to husband and back again. They seemed utter strangers, these two. With disconcerting abruptness he discovered that he disliked them both.... Another thought that came was of the scene of desolation he had left at So T'ung. After that, what mattered, what little human thing! Then it occurred to his dazed mind that this wouldn't do. Suddenly he could see Betty—her charm and grace, her bright pretty ways, with his inner eye; and again his spirit was tom and tortured as all during the night, back there in the hills. If only he could recall the prayers that used to rise so easily and earnestly from his eager heart!
“Where is she now?” he asked, outwardly so calm as to stir resentment in the woman before him. She replied, acidly:
“In her room. If she hasn't slipped out again.”
“She promised, I believe you said.”
This was uttered so quietly that a slow moment passed before it reached home. Then Mrs. Boatwright replied, with less emphasis:
“Yes. She promised.”