“Why not tell them your knee is in bad shape?” cried Laura on one occasion when Amanda’s caustic comments had aggravated her almost past bearing. “You let her stand there and say all sorts of things and never come back with a word in your own defense. I must say I’m disappointed in you, Billie.”
Billie shook her head stubbornly.
“I’ll not excuse my failures,” she said.
“Well, then, let me excuse them—or Vi or Edina here. We’ll undertake it with the greatest of pleasure.”
Billie remained adamant.
“It would be just as bad to have you making excuses for me. No, sir, if I have to take a beating, I’ll take it right!”
Although her chums understood Billie’s attitude and, in their own way, sympathized with it, no attempt was made to underestimate the dire effect of Billie’s temporary indisposition upon their hope of victory in the fall tennis tournament, now close at hand.
“It isn’t only Billie who may be defeated. It’s our whole crowd that’ll go down in the crash—at least, our pride will crash,” sighed Vi to Laura one day.
“I know. But there’s no use arguing with Billie when she’s in this mood,” was the response.
On the courts, Billie and Amanda Peabody had long been rivals. Amanda was a spectacular player with speed and power, but apt to prove erratic, especially when the play went against her.