Then her irrepressible imp of mischief reasserted itself and she laughed.
"Hello, look at the grand lady," a fresh young voice called to her from the doorway. She turned with a spoon half way to her mouth to see her brother laughing at her.
"What was that you called me?" she asked. As a matter of fact, her thoughts had been so far away that she actually had not heard what he said.
"Say, what's the matter?" asked Chet, flinging his tennis racket into one chair and seating himself on the arm of another. "Are you sick?"
"Yes. Or if I'm not, I ought to be," replied Billie ruefully, at which peculiar remark Chet looked still more amazed.
"Now what particular thing is worrying you?" he asked in an argumentative tone, leaning toward her. "Come, 'fess up, Billie. What have you been doing when my back was turned? Robbing a bank?"
"Oh, much worse than that!" cried Billie unexpectedly, and her brother's good-looking face began to take on an expression of alarm.
"Worse?" he queried. "There's only about one thing worse—and that's murder."
"Oh, Chet, that's just what I did," she cried, her imp of mischief uppermost. "I murdered a 'Girl Reading a Book.'"
"Well," said Chet, taking this startling bit of information more calmly than would have been thought possible, "you don't seem very much worried about it."