As this argued itself out for her with
rapid lucidity, she bent and kissed Rosy once more. She even tried to
do it lightly, and not to allow the rush of love and pity in her soul to
betray her.
"I talk as if--as if I were Betty," she said. "You have forgotten. I
have not. I have been looking forward to this for years. I have been
planning to come to you since I was eleven years old. And here we sit."
"You didn't forget? You didn't?" faltered the poor wreck of Rosy. "Oh!
Oh! I thought you had all forgotten me--quite--quite!"
And her face went down in her spare, small hands, and she began to cry
again.
CHAPTER XII
UGHTRED
Bettina stood alone in her bedroom a couple of hours later. Lady
Anstruthers had taken her to it, preparing her for its limitations by
explaining that she would find it quite different from her room in
New York. She had been pathetically nervous and flushed about it, and
Bettina had also been aware that the apartment itself had been hastily,
and with much moving of objects from one chamber to another, made ready
for her.
The room was large and square and low. It was panelled in small squares
of white wood. The panels were old enough to be cracked here and there,
and the paint was stained and yellow with time, where it was not knocked
or worn off.
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