"Gout or intoxication?"
"Keep still, Billy, or I won't tell." Theodora's tone was impatient. There were liberties which not even Billy was allowed to take, and this story, the outcome of her girlish dreams, was a sacred subject to her. She had pondered over it for months, and now that she felt the time had come to begin the actual work of writing, she was revealing the secret to Billy. Mrs. Farrington was spending a long rainy afternoon in her own room, writing letters, and the two young people had the library to themselves. For the most part, Billy was listening in respectful silence; but his sense of humor would assert itself occasionally, and Theodora, like all budding authors, was sensitive to ridicule.
Her threat was enough.
"I won't any more, Ted," Billy returned meekly; "only, if she wobbles like that, I don't see what keeps her combs from tumbling out. Don't make her too lop-sided, or else don't match her up to the man like me. I want girls that are put together tight. That's one reason I like you."
Theodora was only half appeased by the intended compliment. She had a secret liking for the "sweet disorder in the dress," and, of late, she had vainly attempted to achieve it.
"That's all right," she said rather loftily; "only you know everybody doesn't feel the way you do."
"Of course," Billy assented hastily. "What are their names, Ted?"
"The dark one is Violet Clementina Ascutney, and the little blond one is Marianne—with a final e—Euphrosyne Blackiston. The men are Eugene Vincent and Gerald Mortimer, and the dead one is Alessandro Stanley Farrington."
"Oh, great Cæsar, Ted! I can't stand that. Why can't you have a good plain Jack?"
"Jack is fearfully commonplace, and names do count for so much in a story."