but you might ask her to do that, too. And
now I'm going out, to give you time to think this over. And tonight
you can tell me what you've decided. And then I'll tell you whether I'm
going to dissolve our partnership. Your temper's too bad to decide
now. Maybe when you've done that she won't treat me like an unsavory
stranger."
He left, and George sat down to gloomy reflection.
To do him justice, the idea of apologizing to Betty had already occurred
to him. If he put off the day of reckoning, when the time came he would
pay handsomely. He realized that there was no use in wasting energy and
being angry with Penny. He looked over the happenings of the last few
hours and the part he had played in them, and what he saw failed to
please him. He saw himself being advised by Doolittle to concentrate on
the Erie Oval. He heard him urging him not to be what Doolittle called
unneighborly. The confiding words of Cousin Emelene rang in his ears.
He saw himself, in a fit of ill-temper, discharging Betty. He saw
Genevieve, lovely and scornful, urging him to be less pompous. All this,
he had to admit, he had brought on himself. Why should he have been so
angry at these questions? Again Emelene's remark echoed in his ear. He
had only to answer them--and he was going to concentrate on the Erie
Oval!
There came a knock on the door, and a breezy young woman demanded,
"D'you want a stenographer?"
George wanted a stenographer, and wanted one badly. He put from him the
whole vexed question in the press of work, and by lunch time he made up
his mind to have it out with Betty. There was no use putting it off, and
he knew that he could have no peace with himself until he did. He felt
very tired--as though he had been doing actual physical work. He thought
of yesterday as a land of lost content. But he couldn't find Betty.
He bent his steps toward home, and as he did so affection for Genevieve
flooded his heart. He so wanted yesterday back--things as they had been.
He so wanted her love and her admiration. He wanted to put his tired
head on her shoulder. He couldn't bear, not for another moment, to be at
odds with her.
He wondered what she had been doing, and how she had spent the morning.
He imagined her crying her heart out. He leaped up the steps and ran up
to his room. In it was Alys Brewster-Smith. She started slightly.
"I was just looking for some cold cream," she explained.
"Where's Genevieve?" George asked.
"Oh,
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