"You couldn't read it."
"Read it to me, then."
"Well, maybe."
Late that same day, in the long May twilight, they were coming up town together, Theodora pushing Billy in the familiar chair which was so soon to be discarded. With Mulvaney trudging solemnly at their heels, they had been loitering along in the sunset, while Billy gave himself up to the bright companionship which he had so sorely missed during the past ten days, and Theodora tried to talk as blithely as usual, while she told herself again and again that her opportunities for such walks were growing few.
"Lessons to-morrow," Billy said at length. "I've got to grind in earnest now, Ted, if I'm to be ready for Yale, next year. Old Brownie has promised to put me through, though."
"I wish I were going, too."
"To Yale? But you'll do better; you'll write books and get famous, while I'm racketing around New Haven. By the way, you're going to bring it over, to-night."
"It?" Theodora tried to look as if she failed to catch his meaning.
"The great and only IT,—the novel. What's its name?"
"I'm not sure. But I'll bring it, in a day or two," she answered.