“You sure you won't be—lonesome?” Bertram's voice was vaguely troubled.
“Of course not!”
“You've only to say the word, little girl,” came Bertram's anxious tones again, “and I won't stay.”
Billy swallowed convulsively. If only, only he would stop and leave her to herself! As if she were going to own up that she was lonesome for him—if he was not lonesome for her!
“Nonsense! of course you'll stay,” called Billy, still in that high-pitched, shaky treble. Then, before Bertram could answer, she uttered a gay “Good-by!” and hung up the receiver.
Billy had ten whole minutes in which to cry before Pete's gong sounded for dinner; but she had only one minute in which to try to efface the woefully visible effects of those ten minutes before William tapped at her door, and called:
“Gone to sleep, my dear? Dinner's ready. Didn't you hear the gong?”
“Yes, I'm coming, Uncle William.” Billy spoke with breezy gayety, and threw open the door; but she did not meet Uncle William's eyes. Her head was turned away. Her hands were fussing with the hang of her skirt.
“Bertram's dining out, Pete tells me,” observed William, with cheerful nonchalance, as they went down-stairs together.
Billy bit her lip and looked up sharply. She had been bracing herself to meet with disdainful indifference this man's pity—the pity due a poor neglected wife whose husband preferred to dine with old classmates rather than with herself. Now she found in William's face, not pity, but a calm, even jovial, acceptance of the situation as a matter of course. She had known she was going to hate that pity; but now, curiously enough, she was conscious only of anger that the pity was not there—that she might hate it.