“What do you mean?” Cyril stopped playing and turned abruptly.
“I mean that Will has gone crazy, and I think the rest of us are going to follow suit.”
Cyril shrugged his shoulders and whirled about on the piano stool. In a moment his fingers had slid once more into the dreamy waltz.
“When you get ready to talk sense, I'll listen,” he said coldly.
“Oh, very well; if you really want it broken gently, it's this: Will has met Billy, and Billy is a girl. They're due here now 'most any time.”
The music stopped with a crash.
“A—GIRL!”
“Yes, a girl. Oh, I've been all through that, and I know how you feel. But as near as I can make out, it's really so. I've had instructions to tell everybody, and I've told. I got Kate on the telephone, and she's coming over. You KNOW what SHE'LL be. Dong Ling is having what I suppose are Chinese hysterics in the kitchen; and Pete is swinging back and forth like a pendulum in the dining-room, moaning 'Good Lord, deliver us!' at every breath. I would suggest that you follow me down-stairs so that we may be decently ready for—whatever comes.” And he turned about and stalked out of the room, followed by Cyril, who was too stunned to open his lips.
Kate came first. She was not stunned. She had a great deal to say.
“Really, this is a little the most absurd thing I ever heard of,” she fumed. “What in the world does your brother mean?”