“There aren’t going to be any letters.”
After her mother had gone into the house, Theodora drew near the hammock where Eileen had been studying Christian Ethics, squinting her burning eyes as the daylight waned, striving to focus her mind on the empty paragraphs.
“What did you and Hal quarrel about? Go on—tell me,” the child teased.
“Get out and let me alone. Don’t you know any better than to interrupt a fellow who has to bone freshman ethics? I almost had a philosophic thought by the tail, when you butted in on my painful ratiocinations.”
“I don’t want to pry, Eileen. Honest, I don’t. But you’ve cried every night since Wednesday. And when you talked in your sleep, last night—”
“I did!” The girl sat up, sending the textbook flying across the lawn. “What did I say? Tell me every word.”
“You’d been kind of mumbling, and all at once you said right out loud: ‘Hal Marksley, to think I could have loved a dirty calf like you.’”
“I didn’t say ‘calf’—I said—” She clapped her hand to her mouth and her cheeks went white. “I’m going to have a separate room. That’s all there is about it. If I can’t keep from babbling in my sleep....”