Her eyes did not avoid his, but they did not meet in the frank, direct way characteristic of her. She talked and laughed, joined in the give-and-take of care-free conversation. To put into words the difference was not easy. What he missed was the note of deep understanding that had been between them, born less of a common point of view than of a sympathy of feeling. Betty had definitely withdrawn into herself.
Had he offended her? He could not think how, but he set himself to find out. It took some contriving, for when one will and one will not a private meeting is not easily arranged.
He was in the big family room, lying on a lounge in the sunshine of the south window. Ruth had finished her lessons and was on the floor busy with a pair of scissors and a page of magazine cutouts. She babbled on, half to herself and half to him. They had become great friends, and for the time she was his inseparable, perhaps because he was the only one of the household not too busy to give her all the attention she craved. Her talk, frank with the egotism of childhood, was wholly of herself.
“I been awful bad to-day,” she confided cheerfully, almost proudly. “Gettin’ in Bridget’s flour bin ’n’ ev’ryfing to make a cake ’n’ spillin’ a crock o’ milk on the floor.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Oh, I been the baddest,” she reflected aloud enjoyably. Then, unhampered by any theory of self-determination, she placed the blame placidly where it belonged, “When I said my prayers last night I asked God to make me good, but he didn’t do it.”
Tug did not probe deeper into this interesting point of view, for Betty came into the room with an armful of books and magazines.
“Thought from what you said at breakfast you’re hungry for reading,” she said. “So I brought you some. If you’re like I am, you’ll want to browse around a bit before you settle down. This Tarkington story is good—if you haven’t read it. But maybe you like Conrad better.”
Through the open door came a delicious odor of fresh baking from the kitchen. Out of the corner of his eye Tug took in Ruth. He sniffed the spicy aroma and audibly sounded his lips.
“My! Cookies!” he murmured.