An Australian Lassie Part 15

_That_ song and _that_ interview had been the beginning of a great career. Hard work and small pay had intervened, but success had followed success, and now not one of her concerts to-day meant less to her than hundreds of pounds. Dukes threw flowers at her feet, Princes loaded her with diamond brooches, tiaras, necklaces, bangles; kings and queens and emperors "commanded her to sing before them," and gave her beautiful mementos.

Betty was breathing quickly as she came to this stage of Madam S----'s career. She turned a leaf, and a face smiling under a coronet looked at her.

"Madame S----, present day," the words below said.

A neighbouring photograph showed a mite with a pinched face and a tattered frock.

"Madame S----, at eight years old!" was the inscription.

"And I'm twelve," said Betty. "Twelve and a bit."

She turned her head, then raised it sharply. There standing beside her was her grandfather.

The two looked at each other.

What Betty saw at first--it must be confessed--was the keen-eyed, bent-shouldered individual who had appeared to the little street singer, and the silly little imaginative maiden waited for him to speak.

What the grandfather saw was a small girl of "twelve and a bit," in a pink print frock; a small girl with a brown shining face, golden-brown hair and brown eyes, and parted red lips, a little person in every way different from the pale-faced ghost who had visited him awhile back--so different that he did not know her.

He simply took her for a little school-girl and no more.

Then Betty remembered who he was--who she was--where she was--and a few other matters of similar importance, and a red, red flush spread over her face and to the tips of her small pink ears.

The sea-captain opened his mouth in a jocular roar.

"Who's been sitting in my room?" he demanded. "Why, here she is!"

Betty's lip quivered. She _was_ beginning to be afraid--or rather she was afraid.

"I--I just wanted to see a book," she said.

"And what book did you _just_ want to see?"

He took the magazine from her and noticed two things--how her hand shook and how bravely her eyes met his.

His glance wandered over the open page, and a wonderment came to him what there was here to interest such a child.

The next second the fatal question was on his lips.

"And what is your name?" he asked.

Betty's lips moved, but no sound left them. She just sat dumbly there gazing into her grandsire's face.

The old man sat down on the pink bonnet. He was not in the least anxious over her name. She was a schoolmate of John's, of course; he had often stumbled over these active eager little creatures in the back yard, in the near paddock, by the emus' run, near the pigeon-boxes, on the staircase. _Only_ hitherto they had been of John's own s.e.x. This pretty little nervous girl interested him.

He drew her magazine towards him.

"We're waiting for the name--aren't we, Jack?" he said.

Then Betty realized that her hour was indeed come. She rose to her feet and stood in front of him gulping down a few hard breaths.

"I--I didn't come to get us adopted this time," she quavered.

"Eh?" said Captain Carew. He spoke dully, yet the faintest glimmerings of light were beginning to break on him. Her att.i.tude, something familiar in her voice, her height and shining curly head brought that evening to his mind, when she had owned to an intention of wishing to frighten him. A slow anger stirred him, anger against this child, her parents, and himself.

"Your name!" he said harshly.

And at the sound of his own voice his anger grew. His lip thrust itself out when he had spoken, and his whole face wore its hardest, most unlovely look.

"Your name, girl?"

And Betty hesitated no longer. Her only point of pride at this age lay in a.s.suming bravery whether she had it or not. "We Bruces are afraid of no one," being her favourite speech, and as inspiriting to her as the sound of the war-drum to a warrior bold.

She stood straight and her brown eyes looked straight into his brown eyes.

"Elizabeth Bruce," she said.

The old man's anger blazed fiercely.

"Look here my girl," he said, "you can tell your father it's a bit late in the day for these games. Tell him I've got the only grandchild here that ever I want. Now--go."

But Betty stood her ground.

"My father didn't send me," she said, and her face went from red to white. "He didn't know I was coming at all--and--sure's death! he never knew anything about the ghosts. I came to get Cyril adopted because he's getting tired of cutting wood an' only getting a penny a week."

The old man broke into a hoa.r.s.e laugh.

"And this time to get yourself adopted," he said.

But Betty shook her head vigorously.

"No, I only wanted to see what sort of woman to be," she said. She walked to the open window.

"I'm not going to adopt you," said the old man, "so go--GO! Never let me see you inside my gates again--by day or by night. Go!"

And once more Betty took a swift departure by way of the balcony door.

And again she left a bonnet behind her.

CHAPTER XIII

"IF I WERE ONLY YOU!"

The third Sat.u.r.day and Sunday before the ending of term, Dorothea spent with her "intimate" friend, Alma Montague.

Alma's home was a very beautiful one at Elizabeth Bay, and, as Dot told her mother, there were parlour-maid, housemaid, kitchen-maid and every other sort of maid there.