Part 33 (1/2)

”Yes, I'm better. I'm well--only I can't seem to make people believe it.

And you-- I don't need to ask how you are. And so this big girl is the little Dorothy Elizabeth I used to know. You have your mother's eyes, my dear. Come, won't you shake hands with me?”

The little girl advanced slowly, her gaze searching the doctor's face.

Then, in her sweet, high-pitched treble, came the somewhat disconcerting question:--

”Is you--daddy?”

The doctor laughed lightly.

”No, my dear. I'm a poor unfortunate man who hasn't any little girl like you; but we'll hope, one of these days, you'll see--daddy.” He turned to Helen Denby with suddenly grave, questioning eyes.

”Betty, dear,”--Mrs. Denby refused to meet the doctor's gaze,--”go carry the flower to Annie and ask her please to put it in water for you; then run out and play with Bessie in the garden. Mother wants to talk to Dr.

Gleason a few minutes.” Then, to the doctor, she turned an agitated face. ”Surely, didn't your sister--tell you? I'm going to London with Mrs. Reynolds.”

”Yes, she told me. But perhaps I was hoping to persuade you--to do otherwise.”

Her eyes grew troubled.

”But it's such a fine chance--”

”For more of this 'improvement' business, I suppose,” cut in the doctor, a bit brusquely.

She turned reproachful eyes upon him.

”Oh, please, doctor, don't make fun of me like--”

”As if I'd make fun of you, child!” cut in the doctor, still more sharply.

”Oh, but I can't blame you, of course,” she smiled wistfully; ”and especially now that I see myself how absurd I was to think, for a minute, that I could make myself over into a--a--the sort of wife that Burke Denby would wish to have.”

”Absurd that you could-- Come, come! _Now_ what nonsense are you talking?” snapped the doctor.

”But it isn't nonsense,” objected Helen Denby earnestly. ”Don't you suppose I know _now_? I used to think it was something you could learn as you would a poem, or that you could put on to you, as you would a new dress. But I know now it's something inside of you that has to grow and grow just as you grow; and I'm afraid all the putting on and learning in the world won't get _me_ there.”

”Oh, come, come, Mrs. Denby!” expostulated the doctor, in obvious consternation.

”But it's so. Listen,” she urged tremulously. ”Now I--I just can't like the kind of music Burke does,--discords, and no tune, you know,--though I've tried and tried to. Day after day I've gone into the music-room and put in those records,--the cla.s.sics and the operatic ones that are the real thing, you know,--but I can't like them; and I still keep liking tunes and ragtime. And there are the books, too. I can't help liking jingles and stories that _tell_ something; and I don't like poetry--not real poetry like Browning and all the rest of them.”

”Browning, indeed! As if that counted, child!”

”Oh, but it's other things--lots of them; vague, elusive things that I can't put my finger on. But I know them now, since I've been here with your sister and her friends. Why, sometimes it isn't anything more than the way a woman speaks, or the way she sits down and gets up, or even the way a bit of lace falls over her hand. But they all help. And they've helped me, too,--oh, so much. I'm so glad now of this chance to thank you. You don't know--you can't know, what it's been for me--to be here.”

”But I thought you just said that you--you _couldn't_--that is, that you'd--er--given up,” floundered the doctor miserably, as if groping for some sort of support on a topsy-turvy world.

”Given up? Perhaps I have--in a way--for myself. You see, I know now that you have to begin young. That's why I'm so happy about Betty. I don't mind about myself any more, if only I can make it all right for her. Dr. Gleason, I couldn't--I just _couldn't_ have her father ashamed of--Betty!”

”Ashamed of that child! Well, I should say not,” bl.u.s.tered the doctor incoherently; ”nor of you, either, you brave little woman. Why--”

”Betty _is_ a dear, isn't she?” interrupted the mother eagerly. ”You _do_ think she'll--she'll be everything he could wish? I'm keeping him always before her--what he likes, how he'd want her to do, you know. And almost always I can make her mind now, with daddy's name, and--”