The Girl Next Door (Crimson Romance) by Peggy Gaddis Page A

stern again. His hands tightened on the cane, and his body went rigid.
    “I’m afraid you’ll keep ‘em for life, then, Betsy. For the Lord’s sake, do you suppose I’d ask any woman to share the sort of life I lead?” he burst out savagely.
    “She’d like it — if she loved you.”
    “But Marcia’s not in love with me.”
    “No, I suppose not,” Betsy agreed with perfect sincerity. “But she’ll marry you like a flash if you want her to.”
    Peter was still for a moment, but his expression told her it was only to control his temper. Then he said bitingly, “Marcia has never struck me as the sort of woman to make such a sacrifice for a ‘wounded hero.’” The last two words came with such bitterness that Betsy shrank a little.
    “Well, gosh, who ever said it would be a sacrifice to marry you, Pete, you idiot?” she demanded. “Anyway, Marcia would marry you like a shot. She’s tired of being poor.”
    “That’s enough!” snapped Peter.
    “Well, don’t snap my head off,” Betsy protested, with some heat: “Marcia’s ambitious. She’s — well, she’s glamorous and all that, but she’s practical, too. She hasn’t any money, and she needs a lot of it to go on studying to be a great singer.”
    “And you’re suggesting that she would tie herself to a useless hulk like me, just because my ancestors happened to be thrifty and were kind enough to leave me money? Well, thanks a lot, Betsy. I thought you were a friend of Marcia’s. I never suspected you of being a malicious spiteful little cat!”
    “I’m not! I’m not a cat! I like Marcia. But that doesn’t mean I’m too stupid to understand her,” Betsy raged. “I know how ambitious she is. I’ve heard her say, ‘Nothing is ever going to stand in my way again. I’m a singer, I’m going to be a great singer, and nothing’s going to stop me.’ “
    “And is being ambitious a disgrace?”
    “No, and marrying a man you don’t love, if he will help you to realize your ambition isn’t disgraceful, either, I suppose?”
    Suddenly Peter laughed. It wasn’t a very pleasant laugh, and his face looked tired.
    “Betsy, my sweet,” he said dryly, “we’re a couple of fools. Here we sit arguing and throwing brick-bats at each other, and all because of a woman who would laugh her head off if she so much as suspected I’m in love with her.”
    “Then you
are
in love with her.”
    Peter nodded. “Now go ahead and laugh.”
    Betsy was still for what seemed like a long, long time. It might have been a matter of moments; it was probably no more than seconds, but it was long enough for her to watch the dearest dream of her life shrivel and die.
    “I’m laughing fit to kill,” she said at last, in a voice so low that Peter could scarcely distinguish the words.
    “You should be, Betsy. It’s very amusing,” he said bitterly. “I thought the day they told me I was hopelessly blind was the worst day of my life. I know now it was only a sort of curtain raiser. To be hopelessly in love is far worse than to be hopelessly blind.”
    Betsy sat very still. Even in this devastating moment of her own life, her first instinct was to help him, to offer comfort. It was a mark of the measure of her love that his happiness seemed more important than hers.
    “It needn’t be a tragedy, Pete, unless you want it to,” she told him. “She will marry you. She’d like to! I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”
    Peter turned to her sharply, but before the expression of hope could more than flicker across his face, it was gone. “Don’t, Betsy. Don’t build me up with false hopes. If I thought for a moment that she cared for me — ”
    With her usual devastating honesty, Betsy blurted out, “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think Marcia’s in love with you. I don’t think she’s in love with anybody. I don’t believe she’s capable of loving anybody but herself. I only said she’d marry you, if you wanted her to.”
    Peter’s eyebrows