She dried her eyes, sat erect, and answered in a voice full of tears:  “Well, you are so far above me that the time might come when you would be ashamed of me.”

“Nothing of the sort, Betty.  Drop that argument at once.  You know you do not mean it.  You are not speaking the exact truth.  There is no sweetness, no beauty, like yours.”

“Do you really mean it, Baron Ned?” she answered, smiling up to me.

“Yes, yes, every word and a thousand more,” I answered.

“But I am so unworthy,” she said.

“You’re pretending, Betty,” I answered, and I argued so well that she abandoned her position.

“Now, give me another reason, Betty,” I demanded, feeling encouraged by the success of my first bout.  To this she answered with great hesitancy, murmuring her words almost inaudibly:—­

“I could not leave father.”

That was the reason I had feared, and when I drew away from her, showing my great disappointment in my face, she took one of my hands in both of hers, saying:—­

“Not that I should not be happy to go with you anywhere, but you see I am all the world to father.  He would die without me.”

Here, of course, I might expect tears, nor was I disappointed.  I, too, found the tears coming to my eyes, for her grief touched me keenly, and her love for her father showed me even more plainly than I had ever before known the unselfish tenderness of the girl I so longed to possess.  It was hard for me to speak against this argument of hers; for it was like finding fault with the best part of her, so for a little time we were silent.  After a minute or two, she glanced up to me and, seeing my great trouble, murmured brokenly:—­

“If you think I am worth waiting for, and if you will wait till father is gone, I will go with you, and your smallest and greatest wish alike shall be mine.  And when you become ashamed of me, I’ll—­”

“I’ll not wait, Betty,” I answered, ignoring the latter half of her remark.  “I have a far better plan.  I am going to France, and you and your father shall go with me.”

“Ah, will you take him?” she cried, falling to the floor on her knees, creeping between mine, and clasping her hands about my neck.  Her sweet, warm breath came to me like a waft from a field of roses, the fluffy shreds of her hair tingled my cheek, thrilling me to the heart, while the touch of her hand and the clasp of her arm carried me to heaven.

Then she laid her head on my breast, her lips came close to mine, and she murmured with a sigh:—­

“Now, Baron Ned, as you will.”

I told Betty to call Pickering, and when he came in I related my story.  I told him how Betty and I were of one mind, how George had prospered in France and had invited me to share his good fortune, how I wanted to go to France and to take Bettina with me, and how I wanted him to sell the Old Swan and go with us to the fair land across the Channel, where his wealth would give him station such as he deserved.