Christmas came and went; and in a flurry of snow and sleet January
arrived. The holidays over, matters and things seemed to settle down to
the winter routine.
Miss Winthrop had prolonged her visit in Washington until after
Christmas, but she had returned to Boston now--and with her she had
brought a brand-new idea for her portrait; an idea that caused her to
sweep aside with superb disdain all poses and costumes and sketches to
date, and announce herself with disarming winsomeness as “all ready now
to really begin!”
Bertram Henshaw was vexed, but helpless. Decidedly he wished to paint
Miss Marguerite Winthrop's portrait; but to attempt to paint it when all
matters were not to the lady's liking were worse than useless, unless
he wished to hang this portrait in the gallery of failures along with
Anderson's and Fullam's--and that was not the goal he had set for it. As
to the sordid money part of the affair--the great J. G. Winthrop himself
had come to the artist, and in one terse sentence had doubled the
original price and expressed himself as hopeful that Henshaw would put
up with “the child's notions.” It was the old financier's next sentence,
however, that put the zest of real determination into Bertram, for
because of it, the artist saw what this portrait was going to mean to
the stern old man, and how dear was the original of it to a heart that
was commonly reported “on the street” to be made of stone.
Obviously, then, indeed, there was nothing for Bertram Henshaw to do
but to begin the new portrait. And he began it--though still, it must be
confessed, with inward questionings. Before a week had passed, however,
every trace of irritation had fled, and he was once again the absorbed
artist who sees the vision of his desire taking palpable shape at the
end of his brush.
“It's all right,” he said to Billy then, one evening. “I'm glad she
changed. It's going to be the best, the very best thing I've ever
done--I think! by the sketches.”
“I'm so glad!” exclaimed Billy. “I'm so glad!” The repetition was
so vehement that it sounded almost as if she were trying to convince
herself as well as Bertram of something that was not true.
But it was true--Billy told herself very indignantly that it was; indeed
it was! Yet the very fact that she had to tell herself this, caused her
to know how perilously near she was to being actually jealous of that
portrait of Marguerite Winthrop. And it shamed her.
Very sternly these days Billy reminded herself of what Kate had
said about Bertram's belonging first to his Art. She thought with
mortification, too, that it _did_ look as if she were not the proper
wife for an artist if she were going to feel like this--always. Very
resolutely, then, Billy turned to her music. This was all the more
easily done, for, not only did she have her usual concerts and the opera
to enjoy, but she had become interested in an operetta her club was
about to give; also she had taken up the new song again. Christmas being
over, Mr. Arkwright had been to the house several times. He had changed
some of the words and she had improved the melody. The work on the
accompaniment was progressing finely now, and Billy was so glad!--when
she was absorbed in her music she forgot sometimes that she was ever so
unfit an artist's sweetheart as to be--jealous of a portrait.
It was quite early in the month that the usually expected “January thaw”
came, and it was on a comparatively mild Friday at this time that a
matter of business took Billy into the neighborhood of Symphony Hall at
about eleven o'clock in the morning. Dismissing John and the car upon
her arrival, she said that she would later walk to the home of a friend
near by, where she would remain until it was time for the Symphony
Concert.
This friend was a girl whom Billy had known at school. She was studying
now at the Conservatory of Music; and she had often urged Billy to come
and have luncheon with her in her tiny apartment, which she shared with
three other girls and a widowed aunt for housekeeper. On this particular
Friday it had occurred to Billy that, owing to her business appointment
at eleven and the Symphony Concert at half-past two, the intervening
time would give her just the opportunity she had been seeking to
enable her to accept her friend's invitation. A question asked, and
enthusiastically answered in the affirmative, over the telephone that
morning, therefore, had speedily completed arrangements, and she had
agreed to be at her friend's door by twelve o'clock, or before.
As it happened, business did not take quite so long as she had expected,
and half-past eleven found her well on her way to Miss Henderson's home.
In spite of the warm sunshine and the slushy snow in the streets, there
was a cold, raw wind, and Billy was beginning to feel thankful that she
had not far to go when she rounded a corner and came upon a long line of
humanity that curved itself back and forth on the wide expanse of steps
before Symphony Hall and then stretched itself far up the Avenue.
“Why, what--” she began under her breath; then suddenly she understood.
It was Friday. A world-famous pianist was to play with the Symphony
Orchestra that afternoon. This must be the line of patient waiters for
the twenty-five-cent balcony seats that Mr. Arkwright had told about.
With sympathetic, interested eyes, then, Billy stepped one side to watch
the line, for a moment.
Almost at once two girls brushed by her, and one was saying:
“What a shame!--and after all our struggles to get here! If only we
hadn't lost that other train!”
“We're too late--you no need to hurry!” the other wailed shrilly to a
third girl who was hastening toward them. “The line is 'way beyond
the Children's Hospital and around the corner now--and the ones there
_never_ get in!”
At the look of tragic disappointment that crossed the third girl's face,
Billy's heart ached. Her first impulse, of course, was to pull her
own symphony ticket from her muff and hurry forward with a “Here, take
mine!” But that _would_ hardly do, she knew--though she would like to
see Aunt Hannah's aghast face if this girl in the red sweater and white
tam-o'-shanter should suddenly emerge from among the sumptuous satins
and furs and plumes that afternoon and claim the adjacent orchestra
chair. But it was out of the question, of course. There was only one
seat, and there were three girls, besides all those others. With a sigh,
then, Billy turned her eyes back to those others--those many others that
made up the long line stretching its weary length up the Avenue.
There were more women than men, yet the men were there: jolly young men
who were plainly students; older men whose refined faces and threadbare
overcoats hinted at cultured minds and starved bodies; other men who
showed no hollows in their cheeks nor near-holes in their garments. It
seemed to Billy that women of almost all sorts were there, young, old,
and middle-aged; students in tailored suits, widows in crape and veil;
girls that were members of a merry party, women that were plainly
forlorn and alone.
Some in the line shuffled restlessly; some stood rigidly quiet. One had
brought a camp stool; many were seated on the steps. Beyond, where the
line passed an open lot, a wooden fence afforded a convenient prop. One
read a book, another a paper. Three were studying what was probably
the score of the symphony or of the concerto they expected to hear that
afternoon.
A few did not appear to mind the biting wind, but most of them, by
turned-up coat-collars or bent heads, testified to the contrary. Not
far from Billy a woman nibbled a sandwich furtively, while beyond her a
group of girls were hilariously merry over four triangles of pie which
they held up where all might see.
Many of the faces were youthful, happy, and alert with anticipation;
but others carried a wistfulness and a weariness that made Billy's heart
ache. Her eyes, indeed, filled with quick tears. Later she turned to go,
and it was then that she saw in the line a face that she knew--a face
that drooped with such a white misery of spent strength that she hurried
straight toward it with a low cry.
“Miss Greggory!” she exclaimed, when she reached the girl. “You look
actually ill. Are you ill?”
For a brief second only dazed questioning stared from the girl's
blue-gray eyes. Billy knew when the recognition came, for she saw the
painful color stain the white face red.
“Thank you, no. I am not ill, Miss Neilson,” said the girl, coldly.
“But you look so tired out!”
“I have been standing here some time; that is all.”
Billy threw a hurried glance down the far-reaching line that she
knew had formed since the girl's two tired feet had taken their first
position.
“But you must have come--so early! It isn't twelve o'clock yet,” she
faltered.
A slight smile curved Alice Greggory's lips.
“Yes, it was early,” she rejoined a little bitterly; “but it had to be,
you know. I wanted to hear the music; and with this soloist, and this
weather, I knew that many others--would want to hear the music, too.”
“But you look so white! How much longer--when will they let you in?”
demanded Billy, raising indignant eyes to the huge, gray-pillared
building before her, much as if she would pull down the walls if she
could, and make way for this tired girl at her side.
Miss Greggory's thin shoulders rose and fell in an expressive shrug.
“Half-past one.”
Billy gave a dismayed cry.
“Half-past one--almost two hours more! But, Miss Greggory, you
can't--how can you stand it till then? You've shivered three times since
I came, and you look as if you were going to faint away.”
Miss Greggory shook her head.
“It is nothing, really,” she insisted. “I am quite well. It is only--I
didn't happen to feel like eating much breakfast this morning; and that,
with no luncheon--” She let a gesture finish her sentence.
“No luncheon! Why--oh, you couldn't leave your place, of course,”
frowned Billy.
“No, and”--Alice Greggory lifted her head a little proudly--“I do not
care to eat--here.” Her scornful eyes were on one of the pieces of pie
down the line--no longer a triangle.
“Of course not,” agreed Billy, promptly. She paused, frowned, and
bit her lip. Suddenly her face cleared. “There! the very thing,” she
exulted. “You shall have my ticket this afternoon, Miss Greggory, then
you won't have to stay here another minute. Meanwhile, there is an
excellent restaurant--”
“Thank you--no. I couldn't do that,” cut in the other, sharply, but in a
low voice.
“But you'll take my ticket,” begged Billy.
Miss Greggory shook her head.
“Certainly not.”
“But I want you to, please. I shall be very unhappy if you don't,”
grieved Billy.
The other made a peremptory gesture.
“_I_ should be very unhappy if I did,” she said with cold emphasis.
“Really, Miss Neilson,” she went on in a low voice, throwing an
apprehensive glance at the man ahead, who was apparently absorbed in his
newspaper, “I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to let me go on in my own
way. You are very kind, but there is nothing you can do; nothing. You
were very kind, too, of course, to send the book and the flowers to
mother at Christmas; but--”
“Never mind that, please,” interrupted Billy, hurriedly. Billy's head
was lifted now. Her eyes were no longer pleading. Her round little chin
looked square and determined. “If you simply will not take my ticket
this afternoon, you _must_ do this. Go to some restaurant near here and
get a good luncheon--something that will sustain you. I will take your
place here.”
“_Miss Neilson!_”
Billy smiled radiantly. It was the first time she had ever seen
Alice Greggory's haughtily cold reserve break into anything like
naturalness--the astonished incredulity of that “Miss Neilson!” was
plainly straight from the heart; so, too, were the amazed words that
followed.
“_You_--will stand _here?_”
“Certainly; I will keep your place. Don't worry. You sha'n't lose it.”
Billy spoke with a smiling indifference that was meant to convey the
impression that standing in line for a twenty-five-cent seat was a
daily habit of hers. “There's a restaurant only a little way--right down
there,” she finished. And before the dazed Alice Greggory knew quite
what was happening she found herself outside the line, and the other in
her place.
“But, Miss Neilson, I can't--you mustn't--” she stammered; then, because
of something in the unyieldingness of the square young chin above the
sealskin coat, and because she could not (she knew) use actual force
to drag the owner of that chin out of the line, she bowed her head in
acquiescence.
“Well, then--I will, long enough for some coffee and maybe a sandwich.
And--thank you,” she choked, as she turned and hurried away.
Billy drew the deep breath of one who has triumphed after long
struggles--but the breath broke off short in a gasp of dismay: coming
straight up the Avenue toward her was the one person in the world Billy
wished least to see at that moment--Bertram Henshaw. Billy remembered
then that she had twice lately heard her lover speak of calling at the
Boston Opera House concerning a commission to paint an ideal head to
represent “Music” for some decorative purpose. The Opera House was only
a short distance up the Avenue. Doubtless he was on his way there now.
He was very near by this time, and Billy held her breath suspended.
There was a chance, of course, that he might not notice her; and Billy
was counting on that chance--until a gust of wind whirled a loose
half-sheet of newspaper from the hands of the man in front of her, and
naturally attracted Bertram's eyes to its vicinity--and to hers. The
next moment he was at her side and his dumfounded but softly-breathed
“_Billy!_” was in her ears.
Billy bubbled into low laughter--there were such a lot of funny
situations in the world, and of them all this one was about the
drollest, she thought.
“Yes, I know,” she gurgled. “You don't have to say it-your face is
saying even more than your tongue _could!_ This is just for a girl I
know. I'm keeping her place.”
Bertram frowned. He looked as if he were meditating picking Billy up and
walking off with her.
“But, Billy,” he protested just above his breath, “this isn't sugarplums
nor frosting; it's plain suicide--standing out in this wind like
this! Besides--” He stopped with an angrily despairing glance at her
surroundings.
“Yes, I know,” she nodded, a little soberly, understanding the look and
answering that first; “it isn't pleasant nor comfortable, in lots of
ways--but _she's_ had it all the morning. As for the cold--I'm as warm
as toast. It won't be long, anyway; she's just gone to get something to
eat. Then I'm going to May Henderson's for luncheon.”
Bertram sighed impatiently and opened his lips--only to close them with
the words unsaid. There was nothing he could do, and he had already said
too much, he thought, with a savage glance at the man ahead who still
had enough of his paper left to serve for a pretence at reading. As
Bertram could see, however, the man was not reading a word--he was too
acutely conscious of the handsome young woman in the long sealskin
coat behind him. Billy was already the cynosure of dozens of eyes, and
Bertram knew that his own arrival on the scene had not lessened the
interest of the owners of those eyes. He only hoped devoutly that no
one in the line knew him ar Billy, and that no one quite knew what had
happened. He did not wish to see himself and his fiancée the subject
of inch-high headlines in some evening paper figuring as:
“Talented young composer and her famous artist lover take poor girl's
place in a twenty-five-cent ticket line.”
He shivered at the thought.
“Are you cold?” worried Billy. “If you are, don't stand here, please!”
He shook his head silently. His eyes were searching the street for the
only one whose coming could bring him relief.
It must have been but a coffee-and-sandwich luncheon for the girl, for
soon she came. The man surmised that it was she, as soon as he saw her,
and stepped back at once. He had no wish for introductions. A moment
later the girl was in Billy's place, and Billy herself was at his side.
“That was Alice Greggory, Bertram,” she told him, as they walked on
swiftly; “and Bertram, she was actually almost _crying_ when she took my
place.”
“Humph! Well, I should think she'd better be,” growled Bertram,
perversely.
“Pooh! It didn't hurt me any, dearie,” laughed Billy with a conciliatory
pat on his arm as they turned down the street upon which her friend
lived. “And now can you come in and see May a minute?”
“I'm afraid not,” regretted Bertram. “I wish I could, but I'm busier
than busy to-day--and I was _supposed_ to be already late when I saw
you. Jove, Billy, I just couldn't believe my eyes!”
“You looked it,” twinkled Billy. “It was worth a farm just to see your
face!”
“I'd want the farm--if I was going through that again,” retorted the
man, grimly--Bertram was still seeing that newspaper heading.
But Billy only laughed again.