Hetty looked at him sideways, smiling a little. “You never would believe anything was so till you’d tried it, Wint,” she told him. “But you’re pretty decent, just the same.”
He said, studying her: “You’re looking better already. Feeling better?”
She nodded. “It helps some—just to tell some one,” she admitted. “And the spell is over, anyway.”
“Having friends always helps,” he told her. “You’ll find it so.” She smiled wistfully; and he went on: “I’m going to speak to mother to-night.”
Hetty said: “Well, she’s got a right to know. I’ll pack up my things.”
“After Mrs. Hullis goes.”
“Why not tell her, too? Your mother will, first thing in the morning.”
Wint laughed. “You like to look at the black side, don’t you? I tell you, it’s going to be all right.”
She whirled to face him, and said, under her breath, with a terrible earnestness: “All right? All right? If you say that again, I’ll yell at you. You poor, nice, straight fool of a kid. You talk like I was a baby that had stubbed its toe. And all the time, I’d better be dead, dead. This is no stubbed toe, Wint. Wake up. Don’t be a—”
And abruptly she collapsed again, weeping, into the chair.