“I have a letter here from Mary Jane, my dear,” announced Aunt Hannah at
the luncheon table one day.
“Have you?” Billy raised interested eyes from her own letters. “What
does she say?”
“She will be here Thursday. Her train is due at the South Station at
four-thirty. She seems to be very grateful to you for your offer to let
her come right here for a month; but she says she's afraid you don't
realize, perhaps, just what you are doing--to take her in like that,
with her singing, and all.”
“Nonsense! She doesn't refuse, does she?”
“Oh, no; she doesn't refuse--but she doesn't accept either, exactly, as
I can see. I've read the letter over twice, too. I'll let you judge for
yourself by and by, when you have time to read it.”
Billy laughed.
“Never mind. I don't want to read it. She's just a little shy about
coming, that's all. She'll stay all right, when we come to meet her.
What time did you say it was, Thursday?”
“Half past four, South Station.”
“Thursday, at half past four. Let me see--that's the day of the
Carletons' 'At Home,' isn't it?”
“Oh, my grief and conscience, yes! But I had forgotten it. What shall we
do?”
“Oh, that will be easy. We'll just go to the Carletons' early and have
John wait, then take us from there to the South Station. Meanwhile we'll
make sure that the little blue room is all ready for her. I put in my
white enamel work-basket yesterday, and that pretty little blue case for
hairpins and curling tongs that I bought at the fair. I want the room to
look homey to her, you know.”
“As if it could look any other way, if _you_ had anything to do with
it,” sighed Aunt Hannah, admiringly.
Billy laughed.
“If we get stranded we might ask the Henshaw boys to help us out, Aunt
Hannah. They'd probably suggest guns and swords. That's the way they
fixed up _my_ room.”
Aunt Hannah raised shocked hands of protest.
“As if we would! Mercy, what a time that was!”
Billy laughed again.
“I never shall forget, _never_, my first glimpse of that room when Mrs.
Hartwell switched on the lights. Oh, Aunt Hannah, I wish you could have
seen it before they took out those guns and spiders!”
“As if I didn't see quite enough when I saw William's face that morning
he came for me!” retorted Aunt Hannah, spiritedly.
“Dear Uncle William! What an old saint he has been all the way through,”
mused Billy aloud. “And Cyril--who would ever have believed that the
day would come when Cyril would say to me, as he did last night, that he
felt as if Marie had been gone a month. It's been just seven days, you
know.”
“I know. She comes to-morrow, doesn't she?”
“Yes, and I'm glad. I shall tell Marie she needn't leave Cyril on _my_
hands again. Bertram says that at home Cyril hasn't played a dirge since
his engagement; but I notice that up here--where Marie might be, but
isn't--his tunes would never be mistaken for ragtime. By the way,” she
added, as she rose from the table, “that's another surprise in store for
Hugh Calderwell. He always declared that Cyril wasn't a marrying man,
either, any more than Bertram. You know he said Bertram only cared for
girls to paint; but--” She stopped and looked inquiringly at Rosa, who
had appeared at that moment in the hall doorway.
“It's the telephone, Miss Neilson. Mr. Bertram Henshaw wants you.”
A few minutes later Aunt Hannah heard Billy at the piano. For fifteen,
twenty, thirty minutes the brilliant scales and arpeggios rippled
through the rooms and up the stairs to Aunt Hannah, who knew, by the
very sound of them, that some unusual nervousness was being worked off
at the finger tips that played them. At the end of forty-five minutes
Aunt Hannah went down-stairs.
“Billy, my dear, excuse me, but have you forgotten what time it is?
Weren't you going out with Bertram?”
Billy stopped playing at once, but she did not turn her head. Her
fingers busied themselves with some music on the piano.
“We aren't going, Aunt Hannah,” she said.
“Bertram can't.”
“_Can't!_”
“Well, he didn't want to--so of course I said not to. He's been painting
this morning on a new portrait, and she said he might stay to luncheon
and keep right on for a while this afternoon, if he liked. And--he did
like, so he stayed.”
“Why, how--how--” Aunt Hannah stopped helplessly.
“Oh, no, not at all,” interposed Billy, lightly. “He told me all about
it the other night. It's going to be a very wonderful portrait; and,
of course, I wouldn't want to interfere with--his work!” And again a
brilliant scale rippled from Billy's fingers after a crashing chord in
the bass.
Slowly Aunt Hannah turned and went up-stairs. Her eyes were troubled.
Not since Billy's engagement had she heard Billy play like that.
Bertram did not find a pensive Billy awaiting him that evening. He
found a bright-eyed, flushed-cheeked Billy, who let herself be
kissed--once--but who did not kiss back; a blithe, elusive Billy, who
played tripping little melodies, and sang jolly little songs, instead
of sitting before the fire and talking; a Billy who at last turned, and
asked tranquilly:
“Well, how did the picture go?”
Bertram rose then, crossed the room, and took Billy very gently into his
arms.
“Sweetheart, you were a dear this noon to let me off like that,” he
began in a voice shaken with emotion. “You don't know, perhaps, exactly
what you did. You see, I was nearly wild between wanting to be with you,
and wanting to go on with my work. And I was just at that point
where one little word from you, one hint that you wanted me to come
anyway--and I should have come. But you didn't say it, nor hint it. Like
the brave little bit of inspiration that you are, you bade me stay and
go on with my work.”
The “inspiration's” head drooped a little lower, but this only brought
a wealth of soft bronze hair to just where Bertram could lay his cheek
against it--and Bertram promptly took advantage of his opportunity. “And
so I stayed, Billy, and I did good work; I know I did good work. Why,
Billy,”--Bertram stepped back now, and held Billy by the shoulders at
arms' length--“Billy, that's going to be the best work I've ever done. I
can see it coming even now, under my fingers.”
Billy lifted her head and looked into her lover's face. His eyes were
glowing. His cheeks were flushed. His whole countenance was aflame with
the soul of the artist who sees his vision taking shape before him. And
Billy, looking at him, felt suddenly--ashamed.
“Oh, Bertram, I'm proud, proud, _proud_ of you!” she breathed. “Come,
let's go over to the fire-and talk!”