“I’m sorry.”
Phœbe sat down, dumbfounded. Sophie went out quietly, without lifting those roguish eyes.
Phœbe’s father came over to his daughter, and rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. “In this house,” he said, speaking very low, “the less my little girl says about the movies the better.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Phœbe, dutifully.
But rebellion came into her heart that first morning. And thereafter her Uncle John, rector of the town’s most exclusive church, and undeniably a most devout man, was to play the rôle of villain in the drama which Phœbe felt that she was living.
The subject of moving-pictures was forgotten temporarily when more fairy tinklings announced the arrival, about noon, of a second messenger boy. He had still another telegram from Phœbe’s mother. And this time he waited while Phœbe’s father wrote out an answer. Then he went tinkling away.
“Is Mother anxious about us, Daddy?” Phœbe wanted to know.
“Yes, darling. But we’re all right here, aren’t we?—for a little while.”
“I guess so,” said Phœbe, without enthusiasm.
A third telegram came later on in the day, and a fourth that evening. The day following brought others. More arrived the day after that. Phœbe’s father answered some of them in kind, others by letter. After the arrival of the first one he had taken on something of a resigned, almost cheerful, air, and had explained each message to Phœbe, declaring laughingly that her mother would burn up the telegraph wires; while Phœbe, with her numerous letters, would put a terrible strain on the local post-office.