The relief in the poor little face was so immense that Betty’s heart shook before it. Lady Anstruthers looked up at her with adoring eyes.
“I might have known,” she said; “I might have known that—that you would only say the right thing. You couldn’t say the wrong thing, Betty.”
Betty bent over her and spoke almost yearningly.
“Whatever happens,” she said, “we will take care that mother is not hurt. She’s too kind—she’s too good—she’s too tender.”
“That is what I have remembered,” said Lady Anstruthers brokenly. “She used to hold me on her lap when I was quite grown up. Oh! her soft, warm arms—her warm shoulder! I have so wanted her.”
“She has wanted you,” Betty answered. “She thinks of you just as she did when she held you on her lap.”
“But if she saw me now—looking like this! If she saw me! Sometimes I have even been glad to think she never would.”
“She will.” Betty’s tone was cool and clear. “But before she does I shall have made you look like yourself.”
Lady Anstruthers’ thin hand closed on her plucked leaves convulsively, and then opening let them drop upon the stone of the terrace.
“We shall never see each other. It wouldn’t be possible,” she said. “And there is no magic in the world now, Betty. You can’t bring back–-“
“Yes, you can,” said Bettina. “And what used to be called magic is only the controlled working of the law and order of things in these days. We must talk it all over.”
Lady Anstruthers became a little pale.
“What?” she asked, low and nervously, and Betty saw her glance sideways at the windows of the room which opened on to the terrace.
Betty took her hand and drew her down into a chair. She sat near her and looked her straight in the face.
“Don’t be frightened,” she said. “I tell you there is no need to be frightened. We are not living in the Middle Ages. There is a policeman even in Stornham village, and we are within four hours of London, where there are thousands.”
Lady Anstruthers tried to laugh, but did not succeed very well, and her forehead flushed.
“I don’t quite know why I seem so nervous,” she said. “It’s very silly of me.”
She was still timid enough to cling to some rag of pretence, but Betty knew that it would fall away. She did the wisest possible thing, which was to make an apparently impersonal remark.
“I want you to go over the place with me and show me everything. Walls and fences and greenhouses and outbuildings must not be allowed to crumble away.”
“What?” cried Rosy. “Have you seen all that already?” She actually stared at her. “How practical and—and American!”
“To see that a wall has fallen when you find yourself obliged to walk round a pile of grass-grown brickwork?” said Betty.
Lady Anstruthers still softly stared.
“What—what are you thinking of?” she asked.
“Thinking that it is all too beautiful–-” Betty’s look swept the loveliness spread about her, “too beautiful and too valuable to be allowed to lose its value and its beauty.” She turned her eyes back to Rosy and the deep dimple near her mouth showed itself delightfully. “It is a throwing away of capital,” she added.
“Oh!” cried Lady Anstruthers, “how clever you are! And you look so different, Betty.”
“Do I look stupid?” the dimple deepening. “I must try to alter that.”
“Don’t try to alter your looks,” said Rosy. “It is your looks that make you so—so wonderful. But usually women— girls–-” Rosy paused.
“Oh, I have been trained,” laughed Betty. “I am the spoiled daughter of a business man of genius. His business is an art and a science. I have had advantages. He has let me hear him talk. I even know some trifling things about stocks. Not enough to do me vital injury—but something. What I know best of all,”—her laugh ended and her eyes changed their look,—”is that it is a blunder to think that beauty is not capital—that happiness is not—and that both are not the greatest assets in the scheme. This,” with a wave of her hand, taking in all they saw, “is beauty, and it ought to be happiness, and it must be taken care of. It is your home and Ughtred’s–-“
“It is Nigel’s,” put in Rosy.
“It is entailed, isn’t it?” turning quickly. “He cannot sell it?”
“If he could we should not be sitting here,” ruefully.
“Then he cannot object to its being rescued from ruin.”
“He will object to—to money being spent on things he does not care for.” Lady Anstruthers’ voice lowered itself, as it always did when she spoke of her husband, and she indulged in the involuntary hasty glance about her.
“I am going to my room to take off my hat,” Betty said. “Will you come with me?”
She went into the house, talking quietly of ordinary things, and in this way they mounted the stairway together and passed along the gallery which led to her room. When they entered it she closed the door, locked it, and, taking off her hat, laid it aside. After doing which she sat.
“No one can hear and no one can come in,” she said. “And if they could, you are afraid of things you need not
