There was silence for a moment. Then Billy said recklessly:
"I like him. And you can't make me deny it!"
"Like him if you want to," said Mrs. Breckenridge, "although what you can see in a man twice your age--with his particular history--However, it's your affair. But you'll have to tell your father."
Billy shut her lips mutinously, her cheeks still scarlet.
"I don't see why!" she burst forth proudly, at last.
To this Mrs. Breckenridge offered no argument. Carefully filing a polished fingertip she said quietly:
"I didn't suppose you would."
"And I think that if you tell him YOU interfere in a matter that doesn't in the LEAST concern you," Billy pursued hotly, uncomfortably eager to strike an answering spark, and reduce the conversation to a state where mutual concessions might be in order. "You have no BUSINESS to!"
Her stepmother was silent. She put on a ring, regarded it thoughtfully on her spread fingers, and took it off again.
"In the first place," Billy said sullenly, "you'll tell him a lot of things that aren't so!"