“Pretty well for that,” he replied, stroking her hair in a way that proved that, whatever he was to others, he had a soft spot for his daughter. “Pretty well for that, Betty.”
“Well, there’s a good fire! Come and warm yourself!”
“That’s what I can’t do, my dear,” he said, taking off his great coat. “Business first.”
“But I thought you had done all that in London?” pouting.
“Not all, but some. I shall be an hour, perhaps more.”
She shot a mutinous glance at Arthur. “Why can’t he do it? And Mr. Rodd?”
“You think we are old enough, Betty?”
“Apprentices should be seen, and not heard!” she snapped.
Arthur’s position at the bank had been hardly understood at first, and in some fit of mischief, Betty, determined not to bow down to his pretensions, had christened him the “Apprentice.”
“I thought that that proverb applied to children,” he retorted.