“You mean—?”
“I’m kinda horrid sometimes. I flare out and say ‘I will’ or ‘I won’t’ like a spoiled kid. That’s no way to do.” She smiled at him, a little whimsically, a little apologetically. “It keeps me busy eating humble pie.”
He accepted her apology graciously. “Shall we forget it, Bess? It’s a new day. We’ll turn a page of the ledger and begin again.”
Rather timidly, she went on: “I had to come. It’s not that. But if I hadn’t been so tempery, I could have made you understand.”
He stiffened at once. “I think I understood—perfectly.”
“No, Justin. That’s just it. You didn’t, or you wouldn’t have stood in my way. You’re fair-minded, and when you see I was doing what I had to do—what it was my duty to do—”
“I can’t agree with you about that, Betty. I’m older than you are. I think I know more of the world. It’s not your duty—the duty of any unmarried girl for that matter, unless she is a trained professional nurse—to put herself in the position you have.”
In spite of her good resolutions Betty began to feel her temper slip. “What position have I put myself in?” she asked quietly.
“I’m an old-fashioned man,” he answered. “I believe that a young woman must be so circumspect that nobody can find any ground to talk about her.”
“A girl isn’t a china doll. She can’t be put away in moth balls, Justin. Every girl is talked about some time or other by somebody if she’s alive. It’s of no importance what gossips say.”