“But he told father the ideas were all yours, and that you were very clever.”
“I guess I’ll have to hand ‘Pop’ Streeter a nickel.”
The half cynical note in Billy’s laugh did not escape her keen ear; and though she could not have told why, it hurt her. “You bad boy! He meant every word of it. Tell me about it.”
“It isn’t much. Just a picture of Washington life as I thought it would be if we did all the things with Nature we might do. Just imagination.”
“Just imagination makes the whole world, Billy.”
“That’s what we think when we’re children, but I guess when we get out with the cold facts we’ll find imagination doesn’t fill the dinner pail.”
“Billy, imagination makes everything! It builds the world. Why, when God himself looked into the void didn’t He have to imagine a world before He could speak the fiery word that created it?”
“That’s—that’s a pretty big thought, isn’t it?” Billy answered slowly, overmastered by her eagerness.
“And, Billy, you used to believe in it so thoroughly. Don’t you any more?”
“Do you?”