Betty went down to the car, walking as if on ice. All the sunshine seemed to have gone out of the world, somehow. Who was this girl he had brought with him?
“Say that you’re glad to see me,” he pleaded. “Say that you’re glad I came back.”
“You did come back,” Betty said, “but you didn’t come alone...” She turned to look at the other girl, who was standing picking leaves from a bush.
He laughed. “That’s my sister,” he said. “We’re the Pep Twins and we have a radio date at eleven. You’re coming back with me. Get in.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes, you are.”
“Oh, no. I’m engaged.”
“Betty,” he faltered. His hands reached out to her, then dropped.
“But I can’t go through with it now that you’re here.” She took the ring off. “It isn’t the diamond that matters a whole lot; it’s who gives it to you,” she said. “I’ll leave this under the mat.”
She rang the doorbell and came running back to him.
They drove down the street together in the little blue roadster, just as they had driven a year ago, and on the way they passed a certain window with a beam of green-and-magenta light.
“What was that?” asked Betty. “A funny light got in my eyes just then.”
“Only a drugstore,” he said. “Remind me to buy it some time.”