“You mean to say you dragged me off the courts when I was winning—when I was winning—just for a whim or because it amuses you to get me in bad with that horrid Amanda Peabody?”
“No, Billie,” pleaded poor Edina. She was feeling the full weight of Billie’s wrath for the first time and it made her miserable. “It wasn’t for fun. I could see you were limping and I knew—well, I knew you shouldn’t be playin’ with Amanda Peabody just now and——”
“It seems to me I should be the best judge of that,” said Billie frigidly.
“Maybe so. But there’s good judges and bad judges and just then you wasn’t bein’ so all-fired good. I’m sorry if you’re mad at me—and that will probably make you madder—but, like George Washington, I can’t tell a lie!”
“You’ve put me in a false position,” stormed Billie. “Amanda will say I was afraid to finish the set, and there won’t be any one to disagree with her, since I won’t tell her the truth.”
“You can show her the truth next week,” said Edina gently. “That is, if you rest that knee and get yourself into shape——”
“The knee is better,” declared Billie. “It only hurt a little to-day.”
“But it might have hurt a lot if you’d kept on going,” Edina pointed out. After a minute she added: “Anyway I did have something important to speak to you about, Billie.”
“What is it?” asked Billie listlessly.
“About the gift fund. It’s grown so big it scares me. With that five dollars Jessica Holt put in yesterday it’s touched the two hundred and sixty mark.”