"He would ask for a reason."

"'Very well, give it'"

"'I don't know any reason,'" Betty said.

"'The reason is....' Then he stopped, and seemed to change his mind. He began again: 'The reason is, you are going to sit out with me.' And then," Betty ended nervously, "Gerald Boyne came, and--we waltzed that time too."

"Yes," I said severely, "everybody was saying, 'Those two again!' And I didn't see you dance with Ranny at all after that."

No; but it wasn't her fault. "It was quite understood he was to have the cotillion."

"Then it was very wrong of you to dance the cotillion with Captain Boyne. It was making yourself conspicuous."

She protested again that it wasn't her fault. "I kept them all waiting as it was. You saw how I kept them waiting for Ranny, till everyone was furious. And as he didn't come, I had to dance with whoever was there."

"I suppose what made him angry was my going off for that horrid waltz after he had said he 'made a point of it'--I wasn't to dance again with 'that fellow.' And then, what do you think I said?" Bettina took hold of my arm, so I couldn't go on braiding my hair. "I said he was jealous of Captain Boyne, or why should he call him 'that fellow'? Even at the moment I felt how horrid that was of me; for it's not a bit like Ranny to be jealous in a horrid way, calling people 'fellows.' So I said: 'If the Boynes aren't nice, why are they here?' And Ranny said: 'Oh, Gerald Boyne's people are all right. His brother is all right. But I shouldn't want you to dance with Gerald if you were my sister. And if you were my wife, I should forbid it.'"

"'But,' I said, 'I'm _not_ your sister!'--Betty tossed her head, laughing softly--'and I'm not your wife----'"

I asked her if she had said it like that?

Yes, she had. "And I said, too--I said it was 'fortunate.'" Then without the least warning, poor Betty sat down on the foot of her bed and began to cry.

I put my arm round her. And she pulled her bare shoulders away. "You needn't think I'm crying about Ranny," she said. "I suppose it's being so angry makes me cry."

"You are crying because you are over-tired," I said, and I began to take off her shoes and stockings.

"I'm _not_ crying because I'm tired, but because"--she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her nightgown--"it's a disappointment to see anyone so silly ... making 'points' of such things as waltzes."

When she was ready for bed, she stood meditating a moment. And then: "Ranny has never struck me as one of the horrid, unforgiving sort of people. Has he you?"

"Oh, no," I said, and I made her get into bed. I covered her up. But it was no use; she threw back the eiderdown, and sat bolt upright.

"----asking me like that, _at a ball_, if I liked Captain Boyne best--a man I'd never seen before--don't you call it very rude?"

"No; only a little foolish----"

Another knock on the communicating door. "If you children keep on talking I shall have to come in."

We promised we wouldn't say another word. But more than once Betty began: "Ranny----"

"Sh!" I said.

The quarrel about the window had ended in our leaving it a couple of inches open, and the curtains looped back. As we lay there, the room grew brighter; so bright that every little treasure on the long, narrow shelf above each bed could be plainly seen. All the small vases and pictures and china animals--all the odds and ends we had cherished most since we were babies.

When Bettina had come in that night, the first thing she did was to clear a s.p.a.ce for her cotillion favours. The moonlight showed the brilliant huddle of fan and bonbon-basket tied with rose-colour, and, most conspicuous of all, the silver horn hung with parti-coloured ribbons.

When we had lain quiet in our beds for ten minutes or so, Bettina pulled out a pillow from under her head, and propped it so that the moon couldn't shine any longer on the be-ribboned horn. And neither could Betty's eyes rest on it any more. She lay still for some time, and I was falling asleep, when I heard her bed creak. She had pulled herself half out of the covers, and was leaning over the pillow-barrier. She took the horn and the other favours, one by one, and with much gravity thrust them under the bed.

A sigh of satisfaction and a settling down again.

I turned and smiled into my pillow. It was so exactly the sort of thing Bettina used to do when she was in the nursery--punishing her toys when things went wrong.

What a blessing, I said to myself, that I was coming to like Ranny Dallas. For, quite certainly, he was going to be my brother-in-law.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CLOUD AGAIN

The very next day Ranny Dallas went away to shoot somewhere in the North.

Bettina did not hide from me how unhappy she was.

"Perhaps he will write," I said.

"He isn't the sort that writes--not even when he's friends with a person." Then, with a rather miserable laugh, Betty added: "He _says_ he can't spell."

So I gathered that she had asked him to try.

And I gathered, too, that Hermione made light of the disagreement at the ball. She predicted that he'd be wanting to come back in a week or two, and Betty would find he had forgotten about the Battle of the Boyne.

We all came tacitly to agree that was precisely what would happen--all, that is, except my mother, who knew nothing about the matter.

It was a somewhat subdued Bettina who began that year; but I don't think it was in the Bettina of those days to be unhappy long.

(Oh, Bettina! how is it now?)

I don't know how anyone so loved and cherished could have gone on being actively unhappy. Besides, though the weeks went by and still Ranny did not reappear, there was a family reason to account for that. His father was very ill. Ranny's place was at home.

Hermione often gave us news of him that came through friends they had in common. And she spoke as though any week-end that found his father better, Ranny might motor down.

So we waited.

Bettina was a great deal with the Helmstone girls and their friends.

As for me, I was a great deal with my books in the copse. February, that year, was more like April, and all the violets and primroses rejoiced prematurely.

I, too.

I was extraordinarily happy. For I was sure I was finding a way out of all our difficulties. A glorious way. A way Eric would applaud and love me for finding--all alone like this.

I had a recurring struggle with myself not to write and tell him. When I had been "good" and wanted to give myself a treat, I allowed myself to go over in imagination that coming scene in which he should be told the Great Secret.