"You might tell me what it is," he observed persuasively.
"I might, but I won't." Then her heart smote her at sight of his disappointed face, as he turned away. "Some day, Billy," she called after him.
He nodded, as he pulled off his cap. Then he left her.
She stood looking after him, as he went rolling away down the street. It was good to see him so independent with his new tricycle. He was growing almost as independent in the use of his crutches, and his life was quite another thing from the old limited existence when Theodora had first known him. But through it all, in gray days and in bright, she had always found him the same Billy, always ready to enter into her interests, from which of necessity he had been shut out, ready to give her a share in his own more luxurious existence. In a sense, he had been a sort of fairy godfather to Theodora, and to him and to his mother she owed a large part of her pleasures during the past few months.
How would he take the news of this last venture of hers, she asked herself. Still, he was responsible, indirectly at least, if not for the fact itself, yet for the ambition which had led to the fact. Theodora's brows puckered into an anxious frown for a moment. Then they cleared, and she hummed lightly to herself, as she stood looking up the street after her friend, who had long since disappeared from her view. It would have been an ideal morning for a ride, she knew, and she wished she might have gone off for a long spin over the country roads. Still, her face wore a very contented expression as she turned away and entered the house.
Going up to her room, she dressed hastily and ran downstairs again to the closet where her bicycle was kept. Fifteen minutes later, she stopped at the door of a book store. There, instead of leaving her bicycle outside, she coolly rolled it through the open doorway and on into a room at the back of the shop, where she also left her hat. Then she came back to the desk, mounted a lofty stool, drew a heavy book towards her, and fell to work.
She had gone to her father's office, one evening, a little more than a week before. There chanced to be no patients, but Phebe sat reading before the fire.
"I want to talk to papa, Phebe," she said.
"Talk away, then." And Phebe returned to her book.
"But it's business."