nt had always been her "pretends," she began unconsciously
building an imaginary conversation between them, like this:

Ward would come out of the stable--or somewhere--see Blue and hurry up
to the house. Billy Louise would be standing with her back to him,
putting the dishes into neat little piles in the cupboard perhaps;
anyway, doing something like that. Ward would stop in the doorway and
say--well, there were several possible greetings, but Billy Louise
chose his "'Lo, Bill!" as being the most probable. And then he would
come up and take her in his arms. (Oh, she was human, and she was a
woman, and she was twenty. And Ward had established a precedent,
remember, and Billy Louise had not objected to any great extent.)
And--and-- (I'm going to tell on Billy Louise. She wiped a knife for
at least five minutes without knowing what she was doing, and she
stared at a sunny spot on the floor where a sunbeam came in through a
crack in the wall, and she smiled absently, and her cheeks were quite a
bit redder than usual.)

"I didn't expect to see you here, Wilhemina-mine."

"Oh, I was just riding around, and I came over to see how you dig
dollars out of wolf-dens. You said you'd show me."

The trouble with the conversation began right there. Ward would be
sure to remind her of the condition he had made, to tell her how he dug
dollars out of wolf-dens when she was through with wanting to be just
friends. That put it up to Billy Louise to say she would be engaged
and marry him; and Billy Louise was not ready to say that or be that.
Her woman-soul hung back from that decisive point. She would not shut
the door upon her freedom and her girlish dreams and her ideals and all
those evanescent bubbles which we try to carry with us into maturity.
Billy Louise did not put it that way, of course. She only reiterated
again and again: "I like you, but I don't want to marry anybody. I
don't want to be engaged."

Well, that would probably settle Ward's telling her about digging
dollars out of wolf-dens or anything else. He had a wide streak of
stubbornness; no one could see the set of his chin when he was in a
certain mood and doubt that. Billy Louise began to wish she had not
come. She began to feel quite certain that Ward would be surprised and
disgusted when he found her there, and would look at her with that
faint curl of the lip and that fainter lift of the nostril above it,
which made her go hot all over with the sc