For a moment Ralph Marshall hesitated and seemed about to say something, but instead turned and walked slowly out of the room. At the door, however, he paused.
“I’ll find out and be back in a few moments,” he returned.
He remained away longer, but Mrs. Burton was hardly aware of it. She was thinking too deeply. Now, that she had arrived at the door of her decision and was ready to open it, she had half an idea of turning back.
To telegraph her brother-in-law that Billy was being difficult to handle meant the end of Billy’s stay in the West. And, like a good many other persons with tempers, Mrs. Burton was ridiculously tender hearted.
Billy greatly needed the change of climate and the life outdoors he had been leading. He was too frail and was lately growing into a tall, delicate reed of a boy, as unlike the ordinary boy as it was possible for one of them to be.
But, with all his obstinacies and peculiarities Polly Burton knew that she was more interested in him than she was in Dan, who was more satisfactory in every way and never troublesome.
Then suddenly, sitting alone here in the small hotel parlor, she recalled a circumstance of her own life. For an entire year she had made a secret of her own acts, indeed of her own whereabouts, hiding the knowledge from her friends and from her family, excepting only her mother, in order that she might accomplish her desire without criticism.
She had wanted to learn to act and had felt that she could go through the discipline she needed with a better courage if she had neither assistance nor advice. And she had been right.
Now could it be possible that at the present time Billy was being obstinate and secretive for some reason which he felt was justifiable? In all probability he was mistaken; but, even so, had one not better allow him a little more liberty? Billy had done a number of extraordinary things in his life and also a number of wrong ones; but to explain them he always had some queer theory of his own which he had seriously worked out. He did not act impulsively and he was as clean and as spiritually gallant as a seraph.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Burton had not reached a decision when Ralph Marshall re-entered the room. For there was always her Sister Mollie’s peace of mind to be considered, and the danger that Billy with his absurd ideas might get himself into real trouble.