Just then a long, lank, sallow youth with a daredevil in his eye and a loose, handsome mouth came up to Betty and gave her a long, admiring stare.
“Well, some baby-doll!” he exclaimed. “Am I seeing right? Is this my on-time co-laborer in Old Jamison’s office, or is it some millionaire’s daughter?”
Chapter 18
It was Ellery Aiken, who had been in the office where Betty worked before her mother was taken sick. It was he to whom Ted had referred as a “poor sap.”
He grasped her hand in a long, lingering clasp that expressed as much as the languishing look in his bold eyes.
Betty was delighted. Here was a chance to show off her fur coat where it would be appreciated. Here was a chance to impress the young man who hadn’t taken the trouble to come and see her after she moved. She had never been quite sure that Ted had not had something to do with that.
But now here he was and taking in her changed appearance!
She lifted her chin proudly and smiled, and he let his eyes linger on her pretty face, with that intimate glance that all the girls usually fell for. A kind of triumph filled Betty’s heart. She hadn’t lost her power over him yet.
“Well, beautiful, you’re lovelier than ever. Where did you get the glad rags? Strike oil or something?” His eyes roved boldly over her garments as if he had a right.
“How about a date, baby?” he asked. “Got anything doing tonight or tomorrow night? How’d you like to do the round with me? Little supper, dance, and go the rounds of the nightclubs? Like to show you something real.”
Betty flushed proudly, and her eyes sparkled. Ellery had never asked her out before. She suspected that it was because her clothes were plain and worn. But now he wanted her, did he? Well, he would have to ask humbly. With a coat and hat like this, she could afford to be the least bit haughty.
“Thanks, that’s kind of you,” she answered, trying to feign an indifference she did not feel. It was going to her head to have attention. Two young men in one week, even if one had taken her to church!
Of the two dates, she preferred the nightclubs.
Of course, the doctor was much higher class than Ellery, who was only a subordinate with a very small salary, but she had always secretly yearned to see a real nightclub, and she had heard Ellery boast of his intimate acquaintance with them. “I don’t just know what free time I shall have the next few days,” she said casually. “My twin sister is visiting us. I wouldn’t feel like leaving her.”
“Twin sister!” said the young man, deeply impressed. “Lead me to her! Is she as pretty as you are, baby?”
“People say we are alike,” said Betty, with a toss of her head.
“All right, bring her along,” said the cad graciously. “Be delighted to entertain you both. Just phone me at the office and name the night, and I’ll be ready to go.”
“Well, I’ll talk to my sister,” said Betty, flattered as she could be. Poor Betty had been bitter that she could not have nice things and go out like other girls.
Marjorie was longer being waited on than she had expected, and young Ellery’s lunch hour was over, so he left a minute or two before Marjorie arrived, but Betty’s cheeks were still blazing proudly and her eyes shining.
“You just missed meeting an old friend of mine,” said Betty.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Who was it?”
“Oh, just a fellow that worked in the same office with me on my last job. Maybe you wouldn’t have thought much of him, but he’s awfully good looking. He’s asked us to go out with him some evening this week. I told him you were here, and he’s crazy to meet you. Would you like to go? His name’s Ellery Aiken.”
Marjorie had a sudden memory of Ted saying, “He’s a poor sap from the office where she used to work.” Could this be the same one?
“Why, that’s very kind of him,” she faltered. What should she do? Not antagonize Betty if she could help it, of course. Maybe she ought to go along and find out what kind of a person he was. Ted might be prejudiced, of course. Boys were, sometimes. “Where is he going to take us?”
“Why, he’ll take us somewhere to supper and then the round of the nightclubs,” said Betty enthusiastically. “He knows them all. I’ve heard him talk about them at the office. He’s awfully good looking, and very popular”—Betty’s knowledge of Ellery’s popularity was mainly gleaned from his own words—“and he know the ropes all around places. We’ll really see things!”
“Nightclubs!” said Marjorie in dismay she could not keep out of her voice. “Oh, my dear! Do you go to nightclubs?”
“I’ve never been, but I’ve always been crazy to see one. Why? Don’t you like them?” She almost glared at Marjorie. Was Marjorie going to high-hat her now when she had been so pleased that she had a social advantage to offer her?
“I’ve never been to a nightclub, of course, but I don’t think I would care to go,” she said gently.
“But if you’ve never been, how do you know you don’t like them?”
“Why, I shouldn’t care to go among people who are drinking,” said Marjorie, with a troubled look at her pretty sister.
“Drinking! Why, for pity’s sake, you wouldn’t have to drink if you didn’t want to, would you? And anyway, everybody drinks in society today. It isn’t courteous not to drink, I’ve heard.”
“Everybody doesn’t drink, Betty, not in the society I know, and we were well acquainted with some of the nicest people in Chicago. None of them drank. Of course, Mrs. Wetherill was particular about the people she was intimate with. She just didn’t go with that kind of people.”
“For pity’s sake! Why not? Was she very religious?”
“No, I wouldn’t call her religious. She went to church, of course, but she did not say much about religious things. I wish she had said more. I grew up without much idea of such things, except that it was respectable to go to church. But the churches she picked out were rather cold and uninteresting. Lovely services and excellent music, of course, and nice people there, but—no, I wouldn’t say she was religious. She just didn’t like to be with people who drank. She didn’t think it was nice. She didn’t like fast society. We were rather quiet people, you know!”
“For pity’s sake, and I’ve been envying you all the chances you’ve had to see life.”
“But I don’t believe that’s life, Betty,” said Marjorie thoughtfully. “The people I’ve seen who go in for that sort of thing look to me more as if they’d been seeing death than life. It always fills me full of horror to see people under the influence of liquor.”
“Oh, I don’t mean really drunk,” said Betty glibly. “People don’t need to drink too much.”
“Don’t they? I wonder why so many of them do, then!”
“Oh, you don’t see so many drunk! They’re only a little loose. They say a little drink or two makes you bright and interesting.”
“It makes people utterly silly,” said Marjorie, “and entirely disgusting. I’ve seen girls coming home from parties, sometimes in the public railroad station, acting like fools. If they could once have a picture of how they looked and see it when they were sober, I shouldn’t think they’d ever be able to hold up their heads again!”
“Then you won’t go?” said Betty vexedly.
“No, Betty, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t feel at home in a nightclub.”
“I didn’t know you were straitlaced.”
“Is that straitlaced? I thought it was only a kind of refinement. Just plain decency.”
“Well, I’m sure most young people do those things today. All except fanatical people. Religious cranks, you know.”
“I guess many do,” said Marjorie, “but I don’t like such things. I’ve never been religious or fanatical that I know of. But I just don’t like a letting go of the fine things of life. It seems to me that people who do things like that are just letting go of everything worthwhile.”
“Oh, heavens! You sound just for all the world like Ted!” said Betty almost angrily. “Here I though
t I had something nice, to show you a good time, and you’ve spoiled it all.”
“I’m sorry, Betty, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t go to places like that. I just wouldn’t belong. I wouldn’t feel it was the right thing.”
Betty sulked almost all the way home, with stormy eyes averted, looking out the other side of the taxi. At last, as they were nearing home, Marjorie said sadly, “Well, now I suppose you won’t want me to come back and live with you, since you’ve found out I don’t agree with you on the way to have a good time.”
“Oh, forget it!” said Betty unhappily. “I suppose I’ve been terribly disagreeable to you again, and you won’t want to come back. But I can’t help it; I’ve always wanted to have a good time, and I’ve always wanted to go to a nightclub.”
Marjorie looked at her earnestly.
“I don’t believe you’d really like such things, Betty. I think you’d be disappointed.”
“How do you know if you’ve never been there?”
“I know the kind of people who go to such places. In fact, I know personally a few—that is, they are not my friends, but they are acquaintances—and, well, they are not like you, Betty. I think you really like fine, lovely things, not wild, hard-boiled places and people who are just out to do some new, crazy thing and find a new thrill, no matter how dangerous or unconventional it is. Oh, Betty, dear, I don’t know how to talk about such things, but I just feel they are not the thing for you and me to do. They are not things that our mother and father would approve, at least it seems that way to me.”
“They belong to another generation,” pouted Betty.
“What difference does that make? The world is the same in any generation, and human life is the same. Good and bad are the same. Kicking over pleasant, helpful rules and running wild doesn’t change results.”
Then they reached home, and Betty, with a sigh, went in and took off her beautiful finery. That night before they went to sleep she had the grace to apologize to Marjorie for being disagreeable after Marjorie had gotten her so many lovely things.
But Marjorie lay wakeful through several hours, and in her heart began to pray for her sister, the first prayer she had ever made for anybody else.
It troubled her, too, that they had found a point of disagreement. What if they came to live together and found more and more that their ways differed! Would it make life unhappy for them all? Was this one of the things that her father and mother wished her to consider before deciding whether or not to cast in her lot with her family?
But then, other families must differ. What did they do? They didn’t go off and live away from home because they differed, at least not many of them, not nice people. They learned to adjust their differences and to help one another find the right values and make a happy home for all. Wasn’t that what God had meant people should do? How she would like to talk it over with Gideon Reaver!
And then, she suddenly realized that he was one very strong reason for her coming to live with her parents. She wanted to hear Gideon preach. She wanted to learn more of the way of life. She wanted to be able to ask him a lot of questions. Not just once, but many times. She wanted to learn to study the Bible in the right way, the way Ted said was so interesting.
If it should come about that, as her parents suggested, she should meet with hindrances and find her way hedged from coming back, would she ever meet one again who could tell her more about the things of God? Perhaps Gideon Reaver knew of someone in Chicago who talked and thought as he did. She would ask him.
But, no, she would not admit even so much the possibility that she was not coming back. She must come back. Her heart cried out for her dear family. She must know them better. And she must somehow try to help this precious sister Betty, if indeed she was in danger as Ted seemed to imply. How she wished she could talk it over with the young minister! That was what a minister was for, to help people about things like that. He would keep her confidence, she was sure. He had such a wonderful face, so full of peace and yet so strong. He seemed to walk with God so closely. How she wished she might walk with God and find out daily His will. She must learn more about it before she went away, for she could not bear to wait even a week, or a few weeks, without knowing. It seemed a long time to waste.
The little book that Gideon had brought her was a great comfort, though she had found very little time in which to even look it over. It had references to Bible passages to read and study. He probably did not dream she had no Bible with her. She must get hers out as soon as she got back to Chicago and begin reading it. That would be another thing she must ask him, how to study the Bible.
But in this little crowded house, with so many daily tasks, there was little time to read, and no place to read alone, nor to pray free from interruption. And Marjorie was shy about prayer, it was all so new to her. Oh, she was used to kneeling beside her bed and going through a routine petition, and that she had done the first night she slept with Betty, without a thought but that Betty would likely kneel also. It was the conventional thing she had been brought up to do, and it meant nothing but a form until she had heard Gideon Reaver and Ted talk about being saved. But now prayer had taken on a different look. She wanted time and quiet to look into the face of the Lord and ask Him what to pray for. Perhaps the Holy Spirit was already beginning to teach her things that she had never dreamed of before, things that many an older Christian had not yet looked into.
It came to her to wonder if God might not Himself do something about Betty and this Ellery person who seemed to be going to appear on Betty’s path again. She couldn’t see anything else she could do immediately but ask God about it. It wouldn’t do to tell even Ted, for he might talk to Betty and make her angry and do more harm than good. Brothers did that sometimes, though Ted seemed to be unusually wise for his years.
She fell asleep at last thinking of that happy Christmas day and how well all of them seemed to fit together. What nice friends those two young men had been, what delightful company! And what a pity that Evan hadn’t been able to see how fine and wonderful they all were! Evan had fine things about him, too, but in another line. Would she ever be able to make him understand the great things that had come to her life through the last few days? How utterly he had misunderstood her when she had tried to ask him about being saved. Was she ever going to feel toward Evan as she ought to feel if she were going to marry him? Well, she was still not ready to face that question. She must put it off till she got back home, and then she would take time from everything and settle once and for all whether she could ever love Evan Brower. At present it seemed such a troublesome question. And yet Evan was fine and good and respectable, and her adoptive mother would have been altogether pleased with such a match. That her own father and mother would not approve him she somehow knew without asking. Oh, why did Evan have to act so disagreeable when he came here on Christmas Day? Why did he have to come then anyway, just when they were having such a wonderful time and heaven seemed so near? He had made a false note, a harsh, jarring note in the harmony of the occasion!
Oh, if Evan could only be more like those other two! Like the young minister!
And then she fell asleep and dreamed that it was Gideon Reaver who had sat across from her at the hotel table and handed her the blue diamond and watched her while she opened the box. Even in her dream a thrill of joy went through her heart. And then in the dream they seemed to lose the blue diamond and could not find it, but it didn’t matter. They were happy even without it.
When she awoke in the morning the first part of the dream was vivid, and the thrill in her heart was there whenever she thought of it, but it was Gideon Reaver’s eyes who looked into hers about the blue diamond, and not Evan Brower’s eyes, and that troubled her. She must not allow her thoughts to wander off to absurd things like that. As if Gideon Reaver had any special interest in her, a stranger, to offer her diamonds and touch her hands with that strange, wonderful thrill. It was Evan Brower who had offered the diamond, and Evan Brower and h
is pleas that she would have to face when she got back to Chicago.
But meantime, she could not and would not consider him. And she must put away all thoughts of that ridiculous dream or else she would never be able to face Gideon Reaver again and ask him the questions about things she so longed to understand. It seemed a sin to approach him even in her thoughts, in any more intimate way. A man like that was set apart to holy things. His love would be a wonderful treasure to possess, but it was not to be sought after, even in thought. The girl whom such a man would love would not dream of presuming to hope for his love. It was something he must bestow; it was not to be won by human arts.
So she put it by, and although she could not help the thoughts recurring, she decided she could help entertaining them, and she was determined to keep this friendship upon a sane, healthy footing. It was a privilege just to have met him and to have learned at his feet.
So the morning came and Marjorie arose with a gladness in her heart that promised better things even through a perplexing way.
Chapter 19
But Betty had slipped down to the store on some pretext a little after nine that morning and telephoned Ellery Aiken in the office. She told him that her sister could not come and therefore she would not be able to. But she had finally let him persuade her that she could come for just a little while. He told her that he wanted to show her a good time and had some friends he knew she would like to meet.
She came back to the house with a shamefaced look and worked madly all day doing little extras for everybody to make up for what she meant to do that evening.
After the dishes were done that night, she hurried upstairs and came down in the pretty velvet dress that Marjorie had bought her. She had been careful to wait until Ted had gone out and her father was safely upstairs with her mother, who was still supposed to rest a good deal and go to bed very early.
Marjorie looked up surprised.
“How lovely you look, dear! Are you going out?”