"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!"

Silence. Outside the motor horn sounded impatiently. Billy
suddenly came close to her stepmother, her dark, mobile little
face quite transformed by anger.

"You can tell him what you please," she said in a cold fury, "but