Mary and Nora laughed and Elinor was silent.
“I always said he was a queer boy,” observed Mary.
“But why telephone you, child?” observed Miss Campbell, much mystified.
“I can’t imagine,” answered Billie. “He just seemed to have to tell some one that he was going away. That’s all I know. He is queer,” she admitted, laughing.
“Luncheon is served,” announced a respectful colored woman who was in charge of the bungalow at all times.
At one end of the vine-covered piazza a table had been spread with a white cloth, and there the hospitable mistress of the establishment served tea and sandwiches to her guests.
During the ride back home, Billie tried to laugh and talk with the others, and Elinor, too, made a great effort to be gay. But Elinor could not conceal a slight coldness which was creeping into her heart toward her friend, and Billie, somehow, was not happy.
What did Edward l’Estrange mean by going away and shifting all his responsibilities on a strange boy and his poor little sister? And why, oh, why, would he insist on drawing her into his troublesome affairs? She wished with all her heart that he had not been such a nice, interesting boy. Then it would have made no difference if he had chosen to go to China. Only she would have still been disappointed in him, of course. And what had he meant by saying:
“You won’t lose faith in me, Billie?”
It was all very strange and perplexing.