That night she went to a ball, and when she returned home, she persuaded her mother to go to bed.
“I want to have a talk with father,” she exclaimed. “I am going to ask him something.”
She went to the great man's private room, where he sat at work, even after the hours when less seriously engaged people come home from balls. The room he sat in was one of the apartments newspapers had with much detail described. It was luxuriously comfortable, and its effect was sober and rich and fine.
When Bettina came in, Vanderpoel, looking up to smile at her in welcome, was struck by the fact that as a background to an entering figure of tall, splendid girlhood in a ball dress it was admirable, throwing up all its whiteness and grace and sweep of line. He was always glad to see Betty. The rich strength of the life radiating from her, the reality and glow of her were good for him and had the power of detaching him from work of which he was tired.
She smiled back at him, and, coming forward took her place in a big armchair close to him, her lace-frilled cloak slipping from her shoulders with a soft rustling sound which seemed to convey her intention to stay.
“Are you too busy to be interrupted?” she asked, her mellow voice caressing him. “I want to talk to you about something I am going to do.” She put out her hand and laid it on his with a clinging firmness which meant strong feeling. “At least, I am going to do it if you will help me,” she ended.
“What is it, Betty?” he inquired, his usual interest in her accentuated by her manner.
She laid her other hand on his and he clasped both with his own.
“When the Worthingtons sail for England next month,” she explained, “I want to go with them. Mrs. Worthington is very kind and will be good enough to take care of me until I reach London.”
Mr. Vanderpoel moved slightly in his chair. Then their eyes met comprehendingly. He saw what hers held.
“From there you are going to Stornham Court!” he exclaimed.
“To see Rosy,” she answered, leaning a little forward. “To SEE her.
“You believe that what has happened has not been her fault?” he said. There was a look in her face which warmed his blood.
“I have always been sure that Nigel Anstruthers arranged it.”
“Do you think he has been unkind to her?”
“I am going to see,” she answered.
“Betty,” he said, “tell me all about it.”
He knew that this was no suddenly-formed plan, and he knew it would be well worth while to hear the details of its growth. It was so interestingly like her to have remained silent through the process of thinking a thing out, evolving her final idea without having disturbed him by bringing to him any chaotic uncertainties.
“It's a sort of confession,” she answered. “Father, I have been thinking about it for years. I said nothing because for so long I knew I was only a child, and a child's judgment might be worth so little. But through all those years I was learning things and gathering evidence. When I was at school, first in one country and then another, I used to tell myself that I was growing up and preparing myself to do a particular thing—to go to rescue Rosy.”
“I used to guess you thought of her in a way of your own,” Vanderpoel said, “but I did not guess you were thinking that much. You were always a solid, loyal little thing, and there was business capacity in your keeping your scheme to yourself. Let us look the matter in the face. Suppose she does not need rescuing. Suppose, after all, she is a comfortable, fine lady and adores her husband. What then?”
“If I should find that to be true, I will behave myself very well—as if we had expected nothing else. I will make her a short visit and come away. Lady Cecilia Orme, whom I knew in Florence, has asked me to stay with her in London. I will go to her. She is a charming woman. But I must first see Rosy—SEE her.”
Mr. Vanderpoel thought the matter over during a few moments of silence.
“You do not wish your mother to go with you?” he said presently.
“I believe it will be better that she should not,” she answered. “If there are difficulties or disappointments she would be too unhappy.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “and she could not control her feelings. She would give the whole thing away, poor girl.”
He had been looking at the carpet reflectively, and now he looked at Bettina.
“What are you expecting to find, at the worst?” he asked her. “The kind of thing which will need management while it is being looked into?”
“I do not know what I am expecting to find,” was her reply. “We know absolutely nothing; but that Rosy was fond of us, and that her marriage has seemed to make her cease to care. She was not like that; she was not like that! Was she, father?”
“No, she wasn't,” he exclaimed. The memory of her in her short-frocked and early girlish days, a pretty, smiling, effusive thing, given to lavish caresses and affectionate little surprises for them all, came back to him vividly. “She was the most affectionate girl I ever knew,” he said. “She was more affectionate than you, Betty,” with a smile.
Bettina smiled in return and bent her head to put a kiss on his hand, a warm, lovely, comprehending kiss.
“If she had been different I should not have thought so much of the change,” she said. “I believe that people are always more or less LIKE themselves as long as they live. What has seemed to happen has been so unlike Rosy that there must be some reason for it.”
“You think that she has been prevented from seeing us?”
“I think it so possible that I am not going to announce my visit beforehand.”
“You have a good head, Betty,” her father said.
“If Sir Nigel has put obstacles in our way before, he will do it again. I shall try to find out, when I reach London, if Rosalie is at Stornham. When I am sure she is there, I shall go and present myself. If Sir Nigel meets me at the park gates and orders his gamekeepers to drive me off the premises, we shall at least know that he has some reason for not wishing to regard the usual social and domestic amenities. I feel rather like a detective. It entertains me and excites me a little.”
The deep blue of her eyes shone under the shadow of the extravagant lashes as she laughed.
“Are you willing that I should go, father?” she said next.
“Yes,” he answered. “I am willing to trust you, Betty, to do things I would not trust other girls to try at. If you were not my girl at all, if you were a man on Wall Street, I should know you would be pretty safe to come out a little more than even in any venture you made. You know how to keep cool.”
Bettina picked up her fallen cloak and laid it over her arm. It was made of billowy frills of Malines lace, such as only Vanderpoels could buy. She looked down at the amazing thing and touched up the frills with her fingers as she whimsically smiled.
“There are a good many girls who can be trusted to do things in these days,” she said. “Women have found out so much. Perhaps it is because the heroines of novels have informed them. Heroines and heroes always bring in the new fashions in character. I believe it is years since a heroine 'burst into a flood of tears.' It has been discovered, really, that nothing is to