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Miss Billy — Married

by Eleanor H. Porter · English · Gutenberg #361 · 453,346 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Miss Billy — Married

Author: Eleanor H. Porter


        
Release date: July 11, 2008 [eBook #361]
                Most recently updated: May 26, 2023

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/361

Credits: Charles Keller, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS BILLY — MARRIED ***




MISS BILLY--MARRIED

By Eleanor H. Porter

Author Of Pollyanna, Etc.



TO My Cousin Maud




CONTENTS

          CHAPTER
          I.      SOME OPINIONS AND A WEDDING
          II.     FOR WILLIAM--A HOME
          III.    BILLY SPEAKS HER MIND
          IV.     JUST LIKE BILLY
          V.      TIGER SKINS
          VI.     “THE PAINTING LOOK”
           VII.    THE BIG BAD QUARREL
          VIII.   BILLY CULTIVATES A COMFORTABLE INDIFFERENCE
          IX.     THE DINNER BILLY TRIED TO GET
          X.      THE DINNER BILLY GOT
          XI.     CALDERWELL DOES SOME QUESTIONING
          XII.    FOR BILLY--SOME ADVICE
          XIII.   PETE
          XIV.    WHEN BERTRAM CAME HOME
          XV.     AFTER THE STORM
          XVI.    INTO TRAINING FOR MARY ELLEN
          XVII.   THE EFFICIENCY STAR--AND BILLY
          XVIII.  BILLY TRIES HER HAND AT “MANAGING”
           XIX.    A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK FOR CYRIL
          XX.     ARKWRIGHT'S EYES ARE OPENED
          XXI.    BILLY TAKES HER TURN AT QUESTIONING
          XXII.   A DOT AND A DIMPLE
          XXIII.  BILLY AND THE ENORMOUS RESPONSIBILITY
          XXIV.   A NIGHT OFF
          XXV.    “SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT”
           XXVI.   GHOSTS THAT WALKED FOR BERTRAM
          XXVII.  THE MOTHER--THE WIFE
          XXVIII. CONSPIRATORS
          XXIX.   CHESS
          XXX.    BY A BABY'S HAND




MISS BILLY--MARRIED




CHAPTER I. SOME OPINIONS AND A WEDDING


“I, Bertram, take thee, Billy,” chanted the white-robed clergyman.

“'I, Bertram, take thee, Billy,'” echoed the tall young bridegroom, his
eyes gravely tender.

“To my wedded wife.”

“'To my wedded wife.'” The bridegroom's voice shook a little.

“To have and to hold from this day forward.”

“'To have and to hold from this day forward.'” Now the young voice rang
with triumph. It had grown strong and steady.

“For better for worse.”

“'For better for worse.'”

“For richer for poorer,” droned the clergyman, with the weariness of
uncounted repetitions.

“'For richer for poorer,'” avowed the bridegroom, with the decisive
emphasis of one to whom the words are new and significant.

“In sickness and in health.”

“'In sickness and in health.'”

“To love and to cherish.”

“'To love and to cherish.'” The younger voice carried infinite
tenderness now.

“Till death us do part.”

“'Till death us do part,'” repeated the bridegroom's lips; but everybody
knew that what his heart said was: “Now, and through all eternity.”

“According to God's holy ordinance.”

“'According to God's holy ordinance.'”

“And thereto I plight thee my troth.”

“'And thereto I plight thee my troth.'”

There was a faint stir in the room. In one corner a white-haired woman
blinked tear-wet eyes and pulled a fleecy white shawl more closely about
her shoulders. Then the minister's voice sounded again.

“I, Billy, take thee, Bertram.”

“'I, Billy, take thee, Bertram.'”

This time the echoing voice was a feminine one, low and sweet, but
clearly distinct, and vibrant with joyous confidence, on through one
after another of the ever familiar, but ever impressive phrases of the
service that gives into the hands of one man and of one woman the future
happiness, each of the other.


The wedding was at noon. That evening Mrs. Kate Hartwell, sister of the
bridegroom, wrote the following letter:


BOSTON, July 15th.

“MY DEAR HUSBAND:--Well, it's all over with, and they're married. I
couldn't do one thing to prevent it. Much as ever as they would even
listen to what I had to say--and when they knew how I had hurried East
to say it, too, with only two hours' notice!

“But then, what can you expect? From time immemorial lovers never
did have any sense; and when those lovers are such irresponsible
flutterbudgets as Billy and Bertram--!

“And such a wedding! I couldn't do anything with _that_, either, though
I tried hard. They had it in Billy's living-room at noon, with nothing
but the sun for light. There was no maid of honor, no bridesmaids, no
wedding cake, no wedding veil, no presents (except from the family, and
from that ridiculous Chinese cook of brother William's, Ding Dong, or
whatever his name is. He tore in just before the wedding ceremony, and
insisted upon seeing Billy to give her a wretched little green stone
idol, which he declared would bring her 'heap plenty velly good luckee'
if she received it before she 'got married.' I wouldn't have the
hideous, grinning thing around, but William says it's real jade, and
very valuable, and of course Billy was crazy over it--or pretended to
be). There was no trousseau, either, and no reception. There was no
anything but the bridegroom; and when I tell you that Billy actually
declared that was all she wanted, you will understand how absurdly in
love she is--in spite of all those weeks and weeks of broken engagement
when I, at least, supposed she had come to her senses, until I got that
crazy note from Bertram a week ago saying they were to be married today.

“I can't say that I've got any really satisfactory explanation of the
matter. Everything has been in such a hubbub, and those two ridiculous
children have been so afraid they wouldn't be together every minute
possible, that any really rational conversation with either of them was
out of the question. When Billy broke the engagement last spring none of
us knew why she had done it, as you know; and I fancy we shall be almost
as much in the dark as to why she has--er--mended it now, as you might
say. As near as I can make out, however, she thought he didn't want her,
and he thought she didn't want him. I believe matters were still further
complicated by a girl Bertram was painting, and a young fellow that used
to sing with Billy--a Mr. Arkwright.

“Anyhow, things came to a head last spring, Billy broke the engagement
and fled to parts unknown with Aunt Hannah, leaving Bertram here in
Boston to alternate between stony despair and reckless gayety, according
to William; and it was while he was in the latter mood that he had that
awful automobile accident and broke his arm--and almost his neck. He was
wildly delirious, and called continually for Billy.

“Well, it seems Billy didn't know all this; but a week ago she
came home, and in some way found out about it, I think through
Pete--William's old butler, you know. Just exactly what happened I
can't say, but I do know that she dragged poor old Aunt Hannah down
to Bertram's at some unearthly hour, and in the rain; and Aunt Hannah
couldn't do a thing with her. All Billy would say, was, 'Bertram wants
me.' And Aunt Hannah told me that if I could have seen Billy's face I'd
have known that she'd have gone to Bertram then if he'd been at the top
of the Himalaya Mountains, or at the bottom of the China Sea. So perhaps
it's just as well--for Aunt Hannah's sake, at least--that he was in no
worse place than on his own couch at home. Anyhow, she went, and in half
an hour they blandly informed Aunt Hannah that they were going to be
married to-day.

“Aunt Hannah said she tried to stop that, and get them to put it off
till October (the original date, you know), but Bertram was obdurate.
And when he declared he'd marry her the next day if it wasn't for
the new license law, Aunt Hannah said she gave up for fear he'd get a
special dispensation, or go to the Governor or the President, or do some
other dreadful thing. (What a funny old soul Aunt Hannah is!) Bertram
told _me_ that he should never feel safe till Billy was really his; that
she'd read something, or hear something, or think something, or get
a letter from me (as if anything _I_ could say would do any good-or
harm!), and so break the engagement again.

“Well, she's his now, so I suppose he's satisfied; though, for my part,
I haven't changed my mind at all. I still say that they are not one bit
suited to each other, and that matrimony will simply ruin his career.
Bertram never has loved and never will love any girl long--except to
paint. But if he simply _would_ get married, why couldn't he have taken
a nice, sensible domestic girl that would have kept him fed and mended?

“Not but that I'm very fond of Billy, as you know, dear; but imagine
Billy as a wife--worse yet, a mother! Billy's a dear girl, but she knows
about as much of real life and its problems as--as our little Kate. A
more impulsive, irresponsible, regardless-of-consequences young woman
I never saw. She can play divinely, and write delightful songs, I'll
acknowledge; but what is that when a man is hungry, or has lost a
button?

“Billy has had her own way, and had everything she wanted for years
now--a rather dangerous preparation for marriage, especially marriage
to a fellow like Bertram who has had _his_ own way and everything _he's_
wanted for years. Pray, what's going to happen when those ways conflict,
and neither one gets the thing wanted?

“And think of her ignorance of cooking--but, there! What's the use?
They're married now, and it can't be helped.

“Mercy, what a letter I've written! But I, had to talk to some one;
besides, I'd promised I to let you know how matters stood as soon as I
could. As you see, though, my trip East has been practically useless. I
saw the wedding, to be sure, but I didn't prevent it, or even postpone
it--though I meant to do one or the other, else I should never have made
that tiresome journey half across the continent at two hours' notice.

“However, we shall see what we shall see. As for me, I'm dead tired.
Good night.

“Affectionately yours,

“KATE.”


Quite naturally, Mrs. Kate Hartwell was not the only one who was
thinking that evening of the wedding. In the home of Bertram's brother
Cyril, Cyril himself was at the piano, but where his thoughts were was
plain to be seen--or rather, heard; for from under his fingers there
came the Lohengrin wedding march until all the room seemed filled with
the scent of orange blossoms, the mistiness of floating veils, and the
echoing peals of far-away organs heralding the “Fair Bride and Groom.”

Over by the table in the glowing circle of the shaded lamp, sat Marie,
Cyril's wife, a dainty sewing-basket by her side. Her hands, however,
lay idly across the stocking in her lap.

As the music ceased, she drew a long sigh.

What a perfectly beautiful wedding that was! she breathed.

Cyril whirled about on the piano stool.

“It was a very sensible wedding,” he said with emphasis.

“They looked so happy--both of them,” went on Marie, dreamily; “so--so
sort of above and beyond everything about them, as if nothing ever, ever
could trouble them--_now_.”

Cyril lifted his eyebrows.

“Humph! Well, as I said before, it was a very _sensible_ wedding,” he
declared.

This time Marie noticed the emphasis. She laughed, though her eyes
looked a little troubled.

“I know, dear, of course, what you mean. _I_ thought our wedding was
beautiful; but I would have made it simpler if I'd realized in time how
you--you--”

“How I abhorred pink teas and purple pageants,” he finished for her,
with a frowning smile. “Oh, well, I stood it--for the sake of what it
brought me.” His face showed now only the smile; the frown had vanished.
For a man known for years to his friends as a “hater of women and all
other confusion,” Cyril Henshaw was looking remarkably well-pleased with
himself.

His wife of less than a year colored as she met his gaze. Hurriedly she
picked up her needle.

The man laughed happily at her confusion.

“What are you doing? Is that my stocking?” he demanded.

A look, half pain, half reproach, crossed her face.

“Why, Cyril, of course not! You--you told me not to, long ago. You said
my darns made--bunches.

“Ho! I meant I didn't want to _wear_ them,” retorted the man, upon whom
the tragic wretchedness of that half-sobbed “bunches” had been quite
lost. “I love to see you _mending_ them,” he finished, with an approving
glance at the pretty little picture of domesticity before him.

A peculiar expression came to Marie's eyes.

“Why, Cyril, you mean you _like_ to have me mend them just for--for the
sake of seeing me do it, when you _know_ you won't ever wear them?”

“Sure!” nodded the man, imperturbably. Then, with a sudden laugh, he
asked: “I wonder now, does Billy love to mend socks?”

Marie smiled, but she sighed, too, and shook her head.

“I'm afraid not, Cyril.”

“Nor cook?”

Marie laughed outright this time. The vaguely troubled look had fled
from her eyes

“Oh, Billy's helped me beat eggs and butter sometimes, but I never knew
her to cook a thing or want to cook a thing, but once; then she spent
nearly two weeks trying to learn to make puddings--for you.”

“For _me!_”

Marie puckered her lips queerly.

“Well, I supposed they were for you at the time. At all events she was
trying to make them for some one of you boys; probably it was really for
Bertram, though.”

“Humph!” grunted Cyril. Then, after a minute, he observed: “I judge Kate
thinks Billy'll never make them--for anybody. I'm afraid Sister Kate
isn't pleased.”

“Oh, but Mrs. Hartwell was--was disappointed in the wedding,” apologized
Marie, quickly. “You know she wanted it put off anyway, and she didn't
like such a simple one.

“Hm-m; as usual Sister Kate forgot it wasn't her funeral--I mean, her
wedding,” retorted Cyril, dryly. “Kate is never happy, you know, unless
she's managing things.”

“Yes, I know,” nodded Marie, with a frowning smile of recollection at
certain features of her own wedding.

“She doesn't approve of Billy's taste in guests, either,” remarked
Cyril, after a moment's silence.

“I thought her guests were lovely,” spoke up Marie, in quick defense.
“Of course, most of her social friends are away--in July; but Billy is
never a society girl, you know, in spite of the way Society is always
trying to lionize her and Bertram.”

“Oh, of course Kate knows that; but she says it seems as if Billy
needn't have gone out and gathered in the lame and the halt and the
blind.”

“Nonsense!” cried Marie, with unusual sharpness for her. “I suppose she
said that just because of Mrs. Greggory's and Tommy Dunn's crutches.”

“Well, they didn't make a real festive-looking wedding party, you must
admit,” laughed Cyril; “what with the bridegroom's own arm in a sling,
too! But who were they all, anyway?”

“Why, you knew Mrs. Greggory and Alice, of course--and Pete,” smiled
Marie. “And wasn't Pete happy? Billy says she'd have had Pete if she had
no one else; that there wouldn't have been any wedding, anyway, if it
hadn't been for his telephoning Aunt Hannah that night.”

“Yes; Will told me.”

“As for Tommy and the others--most of them were those people that Billy
had at her home last summer for a two weeks' vacation--people, you
know, too poor to give themselves one, and too proud to accept one from
ordinary charity. Billy's been following them up and doing little things
for them ever since--sugarplums and frosting on their cake, she calls
it; and they adore her, of course. I think it was lovely of her to have
them, and they did have such a good time! You should have seen Tommy
when you played that wedding march for Billy to enter the room. His poor
little face was so transfigured with joy that I almost cried, just to
look at him. Billy says he loves music--poor little fellow!”

“Well, I hope they'll be happy, in spite of Kate's doleful prophecies.
Certainly they looked happy enough to-day,” declared Cyril, patting a
yawn as he rose to his feet. “I fancy Will and Aunt Hannah are lonesome,
though, about now,” he added.

“Yes,” smiled Marie, mistily, as she gathered up her work. “I know what
Aunt Hannah's doing. She's helping Rosa put the house to rights, and
she's stopping to cry over every slipper and handkerchief of Billy's she
finds. And she'll do that until that funny clock of hers strikes twelve,
then she'll say 'Oh, my grief and conscience--midnight!' But the next
minute she'll remember that it's only half-past eleven, after all, and
she'll send Rosa to bed and sit patting Billy's slipper in her lap till
it really is midnight by all the other clocks.”

Cyril laughed appreciatively.

“Well, I know what Will is doing,” he declared.

“Will is in Bertram's den dozing before the fireplace with Spunkie
curled up in his lap.”

As it happened, both these surmises were not far from right. In the
Strata, the Henshaws' old Beacon Street home, William was sitting before
the fireplace with the cat in his lap, but he was not dozing. He was
talking.

“Spunkie,” he was saying, “your master, Bertram, got married to-day--and
to Miss Billy. He'll be bringing her home one of these days--your new
mistress. And such a mistress! Never did cat or house have a better!

“Just think; for the first time in years this old place is to know the
touch of a woman's hand--and that's what it hasn't known for almost
twenty years, except for those few short months six years ago when
a dark-eyed girl and a little gray kitten (that was Spunk, your
predecessor, you know) blew in and blew out again before we scarcely
knew they were here. That girl was Miss Billy, and she was a dear then,
just as she is now, only now she's coming here to stay. She's coming
home, Spunkie; and she'll make it a home for you, for me, and for all of
us. Up to now, you know, it hasn't really been a home, for years--just
us men, so. It'll be very different, Spunkie, as you'll soon find out.
Now mind, madam! We must show that we appreciate all this: no tempers,
no tantrums, no showing of claws, no leaving our coats--either yours or
mine--on the drawing-room chairs, no tracking in of mud on clean rugs
and floors! For we're going to have a home, Spunkie--a home!”

At Hillside, Aunt Hannah was, indeed, helping Rosa to put the house to
rights, as Marie had said. She was crying, too, over a glove she had
found on Billy's piano; but she was crying over something else, also.
Not only had she lost Billy, but she had lost her home.

To be sure, nothing had been said during that nightmare of a week of
hurry and confusion about Aunt Hannah's future; but Aunt Hannah knew
very well how it must be. This dear little house on the side of Corey
Hill was Billy's home, and Billy would not need it any longer. It
would be sold, of course; and she, Aunt Hannah, would go back to a
“second-story front” and loneliness in some Back Bay boarding-house; and
a second story front and loneliness would not be easy now, after these
years of home--and Billy.

No wonder, indeed, that Aunt Hannah sat crying and patting the little
white glove in her hand. No wonder, too, that--being Aunt Hannah--she
reached for the shawl near by and put it on, shiveringly. Even July,
to-night, was cold--to Aunt Hannah.

In yet another home that evening was the wedding of Billy Neilson and
Bertram Henshaw uppermost in thought and speech. In a certain little
South-End flat where, in two rented rooms, lived Alice Greggory and
her crippled mother, Alice was talking to Mr. M. J. Arkwright, commonly
known to his friends as “Mary Jane,” owing to the mystery in which he
had for so long shrouded his name.

Arkwright to-night was plainly moody and ill at ease.

“You're not listening. You're not listening at all,” complained Alice
Greggory at last, reproachfully.

With a visible effort the man roused himself.

“Indeed I am,” he maintained.

“I thought you'd be interested in the wedding. You used to be
friends--you and Billy.” The girl's voice still vibrated with reproach.

There was a moment's silence; then, a little harshly, the man said:

“Perhaps--because I wanted to be more than--a friend--is why you're not
satisfied with my interest now.”

A look that was almost terror came to Alice Greggory's eyes. She flushed
painfully, then grew very white.

“You mean--”

“Yes,” he nodded dully, without looking up. “I cared too much for her. I
supposed Henshaw was just a friend--till too late.”

There was a breathless hush before, a little unsteadily, the girl
stammered:

“Oh, I'm so sorry--so very sorry! I--I didn't know.”

“No, of course you didn't. I've almost told you, though, lots of times;
you've been so good to me all these weeks.” He raised his head now, and
looked at her, frank comradeship in his eyes.

The girl stirred restlessly. Her eyes swerved a little under his level
gaze.

“Oh, but I've done nothing--n-nothing,” she stammered. Then, at the
light tap of crutches on a bare floor she turned in obvious relief. “Oh,
here's mother. She's been in visiting with Mrs. Delano, our landlady.
Mother, Mr. Arkwright is here.”


Meanwhile, speeding north as fast as steam could carry them, were the
bride and groom. The wondrousness of the first hour of their journey
side by side had become a joyous certitude that always it was to be like
this now.

“Bertram,” began the bride, after a long minute of eloquent silence.

“Yes, love.”

“You know our wedding was very different from most weddings.”

“Of course it was!”

“Yes, but _really_ it was. Now listen.” The bride's voice grew tenderly
earnest. “I think our marriage is going to be different, too.”

“Different?”

“Yes.” Billy's tone was emphatic. “There are so many common, everyday
marriages where--where--Why, Bertram, as if you could ever be to me
like--like Mr. Carleton is, for instance!”

“Like Mr. Carleton is--to you?” Bertram's voice was frankly puzzled.

“No, no! As Mr. Carleton is to Mrs. Carleton, I mean.”

“Oh!” Bertram subsided in relief.

“And the Grahams and Whartons, and the Freddie Agnews, and--and a lot
of others. Why, Bertram, I've seen the Grahams and the Whartons not even
speak to each other a whole evening, when they've been at a dinner, or
something; and I've seen Mrs. Carleton not even seem to know her husband
came into the room. I don't mean quarrel, dear. Of course we'd never
_quarrel!_ But I mean I'm sure we shall never get used to--to you being
you, and I being I.”

“Indeed we sha'n't,” agreed Bertram, rapturously.

“Ours is going to be such a beautiful marriage!”

“Of course it will be.”

“And we'll be so happy!”

“I shall be, and I shall try to make you so.”

“As if I could be anything else,” sighed Billy, blissfully. “And now we
_can't_ have any misunderstandings, you see.”

“Of course not. Er--what's that?”

“Why, I mean that--that we can't ever repeat hose miserable weeks of
misunderstanding. Everything is all explained up. I _know_, now, that
you don't love Miss Winthrop, or just girls--any girl--to paint. You
love me. Not the tilt of my chin, nor the turn of my head; but _me_.”

“I do--just you.” Bertram's eyes gave the caress his lips would have
given had it not been for the presence of the man in the seat across the
aisle of the sleeping-car.

“And you--you know now that I love you--just you?”

“Not even Arkwright?”

“Not even Arkwright,” smiled Billy.

There was the briefest of hesitations; then, a little constrainedly,
Bertram asked:

“And you said you--you never _had_ cared for Arkwright, didn't you?”

For the second time in her life Billy was thankful that Bertram's
question had turned upon _her_ love for Arkwright, not Arkwright's love
for her. In Billy's opinion, a man's unrequited love for a girl was his
secret, not hers, and was certainly one that the girl had no right
to tell. Once before Bertram had asked her if she had ever cared for
Arkwright, and then she had answered emphatically, as she did now:

“Never, dear.”

“I thought you said so,” murmured Bertram, relaxing a little.

“I did; besides, didn't I tell you?” she went on airily, “I think he'll
marry Alice Greggory. Alice wrote me all the time I was away, and--oh,
she didn't say anything definite, I'll admit,” confessed Billy, with
an arch smile; “but she spoke of his being there lots, and they used to
know each other years ago, you see. There was almost a romance there,
I think, before the Greggorys lost their money and moved away from all
their friends.”

“Well, he may have her. She's a nice girl--a mighty nice girl,” answered
Bertram, with the unmistakably satisfied air of the man who knows he
himself possesses the nicest girl of them all.

Billy, reading unerringly the triumph in his voice, grew suddenly
grave. She regarded her husband with a thoughtful frown; then she drew a
profound sigh.

“Whew!” laughed Bertram, whimsically. “So soon as this?”

“Bertram!” Billy's voice was tragic.

“Yes, my love.” The bridegroom pulled his face into sobriety; then Billy
spoke, with solemn impressiveness.

“Bertram, I don't know a thing about--cooking--except what I've been
learning in Rosa's cook-book this last week.”

Bertram laughed so loud that the man across the aisle glanced over the
top of his paper surreptitiously.

“Rosa's cook-book! Is that what you were doing all this week?”

“Yes; that is--I tried so hard to learn something,” stammered Billy.
“But I'm afraid I didn't--much; there were so many things for me to
think of, you know, with only a week. I believe I _could_ make peach
fritters, though. They were the last thing I studied.”

Bertram laughed again, uproariously; but, at Billy's unchangingly tragic
face, he grew suddenly very grave and tender.

“Billy, dear, I didn't marry you to--to get a cook,” he said gently.

Billy shook her head.

“I know; but Aunt Hannah said that even if I never expected to cook,
myself, I ought to know how it was done, so to properly oversee it. She
said that--that no woman, who didn't know how to cook and keep house
properly, had any business to be a wife. And, Bertram, I did try,
honestly, all this week. I tried so hard to remember when you sponged
bread and when you kneaded it.”

“I don't ever need--_yours_,” cut in Bertram, shamelessly; but he got
only a deservedly stern glance in return.

“And I repeated over and over again how many cupfuls of flour and
pinches of salt and spoonfuls of baking-powder went into things; but,
Bertram, I simply could not keep my mind on it. Everything, everywhere
was singing to me. And how do you suppose I could remember how many
pinches of flour and spoonfuls of salt and cupfuls of baking-powder went
into a loaf of cake when all the while the very teakettle on the stove
was singing: 'It's all right--Bertram loves me--I'm going to marry
Bertram!'?”

“You darling!” (In spite of the man across the aisle Bertram did
almost kiss her this time.) “As if anybody cared how many cupfuls of
baking-powder went anywhere--with that in your heart!”

“Aunt Hannah says you will--when you're hungry. And Kate said--”

Bertram uttered a sharp word behind his teeth.

“Billy, for heaven's sake don't tell me what Kate said, if you want me
to stay sane, and not attempt to fight somebody--broken arm, and all.
Kate _thinks_ she's kind, and I suppose she means well; but--well, she's
made trouble enough between us already. I've got you now, sweetheart.
You're mine--all mine--” his voice shook, and dropped to a tender
whisper--“'till death us do part.'”

“Yes; 'till death us do part,'” breathed Billy.

And then, for a time, they fell silent.

“'I, Bertram, take thee, Billy,'” sang the whirring wheels beneath them,
to one.

“'I, Billy, take thee, Bertram,'” sang the whirring wheels beneath them,
to the other. While straight ahead before them both, stretched fair and
beautiful in their eyes, the wondrous path of life which they were to
tread together.




CHAPTER II. FOR WILLIAM--A HOME


On the first Sunday after the wedding Pete came up-stairs to tell
his master, William, that Mrs. Stetson wanted to see him in the
drawing-room.

William went down at once.

“Well, Aunt Hannah,” he began, reaching out a cordial hand. “Why, what's
the matter?” he broke off concernedly, as he caught a clearer view of
the little old lady's drawn face and troubled eyes.

“William, it's silly, of course,” cried Aunt Hannah, tremulously, “but
I simply had to go to some one. I--I feel so nervous and unsettled!
Did--did Billy say anything to you--what she was going to do?”

“What she was going to do? About what? What do you mean?”

“About the house--selling it,” faltered Aunt Hannah, sinking wearily
back into her chair.

William frowned thoughtfully.

“Why, no,” he answered. “It was all so hurried at the last, you know.
There was really very little chance to make plans for anything--except
the wedding,” he finished, with a smile.

“Yes, I know,” sighed Aunt Hannah. “Everything was in such confusion!
Still, I didn't know but she might have said something--to you.”

“No, she didn't. But I imagine it won't be hard to guess what she'll do.
When they get back from their trip I fancy she won't lose much time in
having what things she wants brought down here. Then she'll sell the
rest and put the house on the market.”

“Yes, of--of course,” stammered Aunt Hannah, pulling herself hastily to
a more erect position. “That's what I thought, too. Then don't you think
we'd better dismiss Rosa and close the house at once?”

“Why--yes, perhaps so. Why not? Then you'd be all settled here when she
comes home. I'm sure, the sooner you come, the better I'll be pleased,”
 he smiled.

Aunt Hannah turned sharply.

“Here!” she ejaculated. “William Henshaw, you didn't suppose I was
coming _here_ to live, did you?”

It was William's turn to look amazed.

“Why, of course you're coming here! Where else should you go, pray?”

“Where I was before--before Billy came--to you,” returned Aunt Hannah a
little tremulously, but with a certain dignity. “I shall take a room in
some quiet boarding-house, of course.”

“Nonsense, Aunt Hannah! As if Billy would listen to that! You came
before; why not come now?”

Aunt Hannah lifted her chin the fraction of an inch.

“You forget. I was needed before. Billy is a married woman now. She
needs no chaperon.”

“Nonsense!” scowled William, again. “Billy will always need you.”

Aunt Hannah shook her head mournfully.

“I like to think--she wants me, William, but I know, in my heart, it
isn't best.”

“Why not?”

There was a moment's pause; then, decisively came the answer.

“Because I think young married folks should not have outsiders in the
home.”

William laughed relievedly.

“Oh, so that's it! Well, Aunt Hannah, you're no outsider. Come, run
right along home and pack your trunk.”

Aunt Hannah was plainly almost crying; but she held her ground.

“William, I can't,” she reiterated.

“But--Billy is such a child, and--”

For once in her circumspect life Aunt Hannah was guilty of an
interruption.

“Pardon me, William, she is not a child. She is a woman now, and she has
a woman's problems to meet.”

“Well, then, why don't you help her meet them?” retorted William, still
with a whimsical smile.

But Aunt Hannah did not smile. For a minute she did not speak; then,
with her eyes studiously averted, she said:

“William, the first four years of my married life were--were spoiled by
an outsider in our home. I don't mean to spoil Billy's.”

William relaxed visibly. The smile fled from his face.

“Why--Aunt--Hannah!” he exclaimed.

The little old lady turned with a weary sigh.

“Yes, I know. You are shocked, of course. I shouldn't have told you.
Still, it is all past long ago, and--I wanted to make you understand
why I can't come. He was my husband's eldest brother--a bachelor. He
was good and kind, and meant well, I suppose; but--he interfered with
everything. I was young, and probably headstrong. At all events, there
was constant friction. He went away once and stayed two whole months. I
shall never forget the utter freedom and happiness of those months for
us, with the whole house to ourselves. No, William, I can't come.” She
rose abruptly and turned toward the door. Her eyes were wistful, and
her face was still drawn with suffering; but her whole frail little self
quivered plainly with high resolve. “John has Peggy outside. I must go.”

“But--but, Aunt Hannah,” began William, helplessly.

She lifted a protesting hand.

“No, don't urge me, please. I can't come here. But--I believe I won't
close the house till Billy gets home, after all,” she declared. The
next moment she was gone, and William, dazedly, from the doorway, was
watching John help her into Billy's automobile, called by Billy and half
her friends, “Peggy,” short for “Pegasus.”

Still dazedly William turned back into the house and dropped himself
into the nearest chair.

What a curious call it had been! Aunt Hannah had not acted like herself
at all. Not once had she said “Oh, my grief and conscience!” while the
things she _had_ said--! Someway, he had never thought of Aunt Hannah as
being young, and a bride. Still, of course she must have been--once. And
the reason she gave for not coming there to live--the pitiful story
of that outsider in her home! But she was no outsider! She was no
interfering brother of Billy's--

William caught his breath suddenly, and held it suspended. Then he gave
a low ejaculation and half sprang from his chair.

Spunkie, disturbed from her doze by the fire, uttered a purring
“me-o-ow,” and looked up inquiringly.

For a long minute William gazed dumbly into the cat's yellow, sleepily
contented eyes; then he said with tragic distinctness:

“Spunkie, it's true: Aunt Hannah isn't Billy's husband's brother, but--I
am! Do you hear? I _am!_”

“Pur-r-me-ow!” commented Spunkie; and curled herself for another nap.

There was no peace for William after that. In vain he told himself that
he was no “interfering” brother, and that this was his home and had been
all his life; in vain did he declare emphatically that he could not go,
he would not go; that Billy would not wish him to go: always before his
eyes was the vision of that little bride of years long gone; always in
his ears was the echo of Aunt Hannah's “I shall never forget the utter
freedom and happiness of those months for us, with the whole house to
ourselves.” Nor, turn which way he would, could he find anything to
comfort him. Simply because he was so fearfully looking for it, he found
it--the thing that had for its theme the wretchedness that might be
expected from the presence of a third person in the new home.

Poor William! Everywhere he met it--the hint, the word, the story, the
song, even; and always it added its mite to the woeful whole. Even the
hoariest of mother-in-law jokes had its sting for him; and, to make his
cup quite full, he chanced to remember one day what Marie had said when
he had suggested that she and Cyril come to the Strata to live: “No; I
think young folks should begin by themselves.”

Unhappy, indeed, were these days for William. Like a lost spirit he
wandered from room to room, touching this, fingering that. For long
minutes he would stand before some picture, or some treasured bit of old
mahogany, as if to stamp indelibly upon his mind a thing that was soon
to be no more. At other times, like a man without a home, he would
go out into the Common or the Public Garden and sit for hours on some
bench--thinking.

All this could have but one ending, of course. Before the middle of
August William summoned Pete to his rooms.

“Oh, Pete, I'm going to move next week,” he began nonchalantly. His
voice sounded as if moving were a pleasurable circumstance that occurred
in his life regularly once a month. “I'd like you to begin to pack up
these things, please, to-morrow.”

The old servant's mouth fell open.

“You're goin' to--to what, sir?” he stammered.

“Move--_move_, I said.” William spoke with unusual harshness.

Pete wet his lips.

“You mean you've sold the old place, sir?--that we--we ain't goin' to
live here no longer?”

“Sold? Of course not! _I'm_ going to move away; not you.”

If Pete could have known what caused the sharpness in his master's
voice, he would not have been so grieved--or, rather, he would have
been grieved for a different reason. As it was he could only falter
miserably:

“_You_ are goin' to move away from here!”

“Yes, yes, man! Why, Pete, what ails you? One would think a body never
moved before.”

“They didn't--not you, sir.”

William turned abruptly, so that his face could not be seen. With stern
deliberation he picked up an elaborately decorated teapot; but the
valuable bit of Lowestoft shook so in his hand that he set it down at
once. It clicked sharply against its neighbor, betraying his nervous
hand.

Pete stirred.

“But, Mr. William,” he stammered thickly; “how are you--what'll you do
without--There doesn't nobody but me know so well about your tea, and
the two lumps in your coffee; and there's your flannels that you never
put on till I get 'em out, and the woolen socks that you'd wear all
summer if I didn't hide 'em. And--and who's goin' to take care of
these?” he finished, with a glance that encompassed the overflowing
cabinets and shelves of curios all about him.

His master smiled sadly. An affection that had its inception in his
boyhood days shone in his eyes. The hand in which the Lowestoft had
shaken rested now heavily on an old man's bent shoulder--a shoulder that
straightened itself in unconscious loyalty under the touch.

“Pete, you have spoiled me, and no mistake. I don't expect to find
another like you. But maybe if I wear the woolen socks too late you'll
come and hunt up the others for me. Eh?” And, with a smile that was
meant to be quizzical, William turned and began to shift the teapots
about again.

“But, Mr. William, why--that is, what will Mr. Bertram and Miss Billy
do--without you?” ventured the old man.

There was a sudden tinkling crash. On the floor lay the fragments of a
silver-luster teapot.

The servant exclaimed aloud in dismay, but his master did not even
glance toward his once treasured possession on the floor.

“Nonsense, Pete!” he was saying in a particularly cheery voice. “Have
you lived all these years and not found out that newly-married folks
don't _need_ any one else around? Come, do you suppose we could begin
to pack these teapots to-night?” he added, a little feverishly. “Aren't
there some boxes down cellar?”

“I'll see, sir,” said Pete, respectfully; but the expression on his face
as he turned away showed that he was not thinking of teapots--nor of
boxes in which to pack them.




CHAPTER III. BILLY SPEAKS HER MIND


Mr. and Mrs. Bertram Henshaw were expected home the first of September.
By the thirty-first of August the old Beacon Street homestead facing
the Public Garden was in spick-and-span order, with Dong Ling in the
basement hovering over a well-stocked larder, and Pete searching the
rest of the house for a chair awry, or a bit of dust undiscovered.

Twice before had the Strata--as Bertram long ago dubbed the home of
his boyhood--been prepared for the coming of Billy, William's namesake:
once, when it had been decorated with guns and fishing-rods to welcome
the “boy” who turned out to be a girl; and again when with pink roses
and sewing-baskets the three brothers got joyously ready for a feminine
Billy who did not even come at all.

The house had been very different then. It had been, indeed, a “strata,”
 with its distinctive layers of fads and pursuits as represented by
Bertram and his painting on one floor, William and his curios on
another, and Cyril with his music on a third. Cyril was gone now. Only
Pete and his humble belongings occupied the top floor. The floor below,
too, was silent now, and almost empty save for a rug or two, and a few
pieces of heavy furniture that William had not cared to take with him
to his new quarters on top of Beacon Hill. Below this, however, came
Billy's old rooms, and on these Pete had lavished all his skill and
devotion.

Freshly laundered curtains were at the windows, dustless rugs were on
the floor. The old work-basket had been brought down from the top-floor
storeroom, and the long-closed piano stood invitingly open. In
a conspicuous place, also, sat the little green god, upon whose
exquisitely carved shoulders was supposed to rest the “heap plenty velly
good luckee” of Dong Ling's prophecy.

On the first floor Bertram's old rooms and the drawing-room came in for
their share of the general overhauling. Even Spunkie did not escape, but
had to submit to the ignominy of a bath. And then dawned fair and clear
the first day of September, bringing at five o'clock the bride and
groom.

Respectfully lined up in the hall to meet them were Pete and Dong Ling:
Pete with his wrinkled old face alight with joy and excitement; Dong
Ling grinning and kotowing, and chanting in a high-pitched treble:

“Miss Billee, Miss Billee--plenty much welcome, Miss Billee!”

“Yes, welcome home, Mrs. _Henshaw!_” bowed Bertram, turning at the door,
with an elaborate flourish that did not in the least hide his tender
pride in his new wife.

Billy laughed and colored a pretty pink.

“Thank you--all of you,” she cried a little unsteadily. “And how good,
good everything does look to me! Why, where's Uncle William?” she broke
off, casting hurriedly anxious eyes about her.

“Well, I should say so,” echoed Bertram. “Where is he, Pete? He isn't
sick, is he?”

A quick change crossed the old servant's face. He shook his head dumbly.

Billy gave a gleeful laugh.

“I know--he's asleep!” she caroled, skipping to the bottom of the
stairway and looking up.

“Ho, Uncle William! Better wake up, sir. The folks have come!”

Pete cleared his throat.

“Mr. William isn't here, Miss--ma'am,” he corrected miserably.

Billy smiled, but she frowned, too.

“Not here! Well, I like that,” she pouted; “--and when I've brought him
the most beautiful pair of mirror knobs he ever saw, and all the way
in my bag, too, so I could give them to him the very first thing,” she
added, darting over to the small bag she had brought in with her. “I'm
glad I did, too, for our trunks didn't come,” she continued laughingly.
“Still, if he isn't here to receive them--There, Pete, aren't they
beautiful?” she cried, carefully taking from their wrappings two
exquisitely decorated porcelain discs mounted on two long spikes.
“They're Batterseas--the real article. I know enough for that; and
they're finer than anything he's got. Won't he be pleased?”

“Yes, Miss--ma'am, I mean,” stammered the old man.

“These new titles come hard, don't they, Pete?” laughed Bertram.

Pete smiled faintly.

“Never mind, Pete,” soothed his new mistress. “You shall call me 'Miss
Billy' all your life if you want to. Bertram,” she added, turning to
her husband, “I'm going to just run up-stairs and put these in Uncle
William's rooms so they'll be there when he comes in. We'll see how soon
he discovers them!”

Before Pete could stop her she was half-way up the first flight of
stairs. Even then he tried to speak to his young master, to explain
that Mr. William was not living there; but the words refused to come. He
could only stand dumbly waiting.

In a minute it came--Billy's sharp, startled cry.

“Bertram! Bertram!”

Bertram sprang for the stairway, but he had not reached the top when he
met his wife coming down. She was white-faced and trembling.

“Bertram--those rooms--there's not so much as a teapot there! Uncle
William's--gone!”

“Gone!” Bertram wheeled sharply. “Pete, what is the meaning of this?
Where is my brother?” To hear him, one would think he suspected the old
servant of having hidden his master.

Pete lifted a shaking hand and fumbled with his collar.

“He's moved, sir.”

“Moved! Oh, you mean to other rooms--to Cyril's.” Bertram relaxed
visibly. “He's upstairs, maybe.”

Pete shook his head.

“No, sir. He's moved away--out of the house, sir.”

For a brief moment Bertram stared as if he could not believe what his
ears had heard. Then, step by step, he began to descend the stairs.

“Do you mean--to say--that my brother--has moved-gone away--_left_--his
_home?_” he demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

Billy gave a low cry.

“But why--why?” she choked, almost stumbling headlong down the stairway
in her effort to reach the two men at the bottom. “Pete, why did he go?”

There was no answer.

“Pete,”--Bertram's voice was very sharp--“what is the meaning of this?
Do you know why my brother left his home?”

The old man wet his lips and swallowed chokingly, but he did not speak.

“I'm waiting, Pete.”

Billy laid one hand on the old servant's arm--in the other hand she
still tightly clutched the mirror knobs.

“Pete, if you do know, won't you tell us, please?” she begged.

Pete looked down at the hand, then up at the troubled young face with
the beseeching eyes. His own features worked convulsively. With a
visible effort he cleared his throat.

“I know--what he said,” he stammered, his eyes averted.

“What was it?”

There was no answer.

“Look here, Pete, you'll have to tell us, you know,” cut in Bertram,
decisively, “so you might as well do it now as ever.”

Once more Pete cleared his throat. This time the words came in a burst
of desperation.

“Yes, sir. I understand, sir. It was only that he said--he said as how
young folks didn't _need_ any one else around. So he was goin'.”

“Didn't _need_ any one else!” exclaimed Bertram, plainly not
comprehending.

“Yes, sir. You two bein' married so, now.” Pete's eyes were still
averted.

Billy gave a low cry.

“You mean--because _I_ came?” she demanded.

“Why, yes, Miss--no--that is--” Pete stopped with an appealing glance at
Bertram.

“Then it was--it _was_--on account of _me_,” choked Billy.

Pete looked still more distressed

“No, no!” he faltered. “It was only that he thought you wouldn't want
him here now.”

“Want him here!” ejaculated Bertram.

“Want him here!” echoed Billy, with a sob.

“Pete, where is he?” As she asked the question she dropped the mirror
knobs into her open bag, and reached for her coat and gloves--she had
not removed her hat.

Pete gave the address.

“It's just down the street a bit and up the hill,” he added excitedly,
divining her purpose. “It's a sort of a boarding-house, I reckon.”

“A _boarding-house_--for Uncle William!” scorned Billy, her eyes ablaze.
“Come, Bertram, we'll see about that.”

Bertram reached out a detaining hand.

“But, dearest, you're so tired,” he demurred. “Hadn't we better wait
till after dinner, or till to-morrow?”

“After dinner! To-morrow!” Billy's eyes blazed anew. “Why, Bertram
Henshaw, do you think I'd leave that dear man even one minute longer,
if I could help it, with a notion in his blessed old head that we didn't
_want_ him?”

“But you said a little while ago you had a headache, dear,” still
objected Bertram. “If you'd just eat your dinner!”

“Dinner!” choked Billy. “I wonder if you think I could eat any dinner
with Uncle William turned out of his home! I'm going to find Uncle
William.” And she stumbled blindly toward the door.

Bertram reached for his hat. He threw a despairing glance into Pete's
eyes.

“We'll be back--when we can,” he said, with a frown.

“Yes, sir,” answered Pete, respectfully. Then, as if impelled by some
hidden force, he touched his master's arm. “It was that way she looked,
sir, when she came to _you_--that night last July--with her eyes all
shining,” he whispered.

A tender smile curved Bertram's lips. The frown vanished from his face.

“Bless you, Pete--and bless her, too!” he whispered back. The next
moment he had hurried after his wife.

The house that bore the number Pete had given proved to have a
pretentious doorway, and a landlady who, in response to the summons of
the neat maid, appeared with a most impressive rustle of black silk and
jet bugles.

No, Mr. William Henshaw was not in his rooms. In fact, he was very
seldom there. His business, she believed, called him to State Street
through the day. Outside of that, she had been told, he spent much time
sitting on a bench in the Common. Doubtless, if they cared to search,
they could find him there now.

“A bench in the Common, indeed!” stormed Billy, as she and Bertram
hurried down the wide stone steps. “Uncle William--on a bench!”

“But surely now, dear,” ventured her husband, “you'll come home and get
your dinner!”

Billy turned indignantly.

“And leave Uncle William on a bench in the Common? Indeed, no! Why,
Bertram, you wouldn't, either,” she cried, as she turned resolutely
toward one of the entrances to the Common.

And Bertram, with the “eyes all shining” still before him, could only
murmur: “No, of course not, dear!” and follow obediently where she led.

Under ordinary circumstances it would have been a delightful hour for a
walk. The sun had almost set, and the shadows lay long across the grass.
The air was cool and unusually bracing for a day so early in September.
But all this was lost on Bertram. Bertram did not wish to take a walk.
He was hungry. He wanted his dinner; and he wanted, too, his old home
with his new wife flitting about the rooms as he had pictured this first
evening together. He wanted William, of course. Certainly he wanted
William; but if William would insist on running away and sitting on
park benches in this ridiculous fashion, he ought to take the
consequences--until to-morrow.

Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed. Up one path and down another trudged
the anxious-eyed Billy and her increasingly impatient husband. Then when
the fifteen weary minutes had become a still more weary half-hour, the
bonds Bertram had set on his temper snapped.

“Billy,” he remonstrated despairingly, “do, please, come home! Don't you
see how highly improbable it is that we should happen on William if we
walked like this all night? He might move--change his seat--go home,
even. He probably has gone home. And surely never before did a bride
insist on spending the first evening after her return tramping up and
down a public park for hour after hour like this, looking for any man.
_Won't_ you come home?”

But Billy had not even heard. With a glad little cry she had darted to
the side of the humped-up figure of a man alone on a park bench just
ahead of them.

“Uncle William! Oh, Uncle William, how could you?” she cried, dropping
herself on to one end of the seat and catching the man's arm in both her
hands.

“Yes, how could you?” demanded Bertram, with just a touch of irritation,
dropping himself on to the other end of the seat, and catching the man's
other arm in his one usable hand.

The bent shoulders and bowed head straightened up with a jerk.

“Well, well, bless my soul! If it isn't our little bride,” cried Uncle
William, fondly. “And the happy bridegroom, too. When did you get home?”

“We haven't got home,” retorted Bertram, promptly, before his wife could
speak. “Oh, we looked in at the door an hour or so back; but we didn't
stay. We've been hunting for you ever since.”

“Nonsense, children!” Uncle William spoke with gay cheeriness; but he
refused to meet either Billy's or Bertram's eyes.

“Uncle William, how could you do it?” reproached Billy, again.

“Do what?” Uncle William was plainly fencing for time.

“Leave the house like that?”

“Ho! I wanted a change.”

“As if we'd believe that!” scoffed Billy.

“All right; let's call it you've had the change, then,” laughed Bertram,
“and we'll send over for your things to-morrow. Come--now let's go home
to dinner.”

William shook his head. He essayed a gay smile.

“Why, I've only just begun. I'm going to stay--oh, I don't know how long
I'm going to stay,” he finished blithely.

Billy lifted her chin a little.

“Uncle William, you aren't playing square. Pete told us what you said
when you left.”

“Eh? What?” William looked up with startled eyes.

“About--about our not _needing_ you. So we know, now, why you left; and
we _sha'n't stand_ it.”

“Pete? That? Oh, that--that's nonsense I--I'll settle with Pete.”

Billy laughed softly.

“Poor Pete! Don't. We simply dragged it out of him. And now we're here
to tell you that we _do_ want you, and that you _must_ come back.”

Again William shook his head. A swift shadow crossed his face.

“Thank you, no, children,” he said dully.

“You're very kind, but you don't need me. I should be just an
interfering elder brother. I should spoil your young married life.”
(William's voice now sounded as if he were reciting a well-learned
lesson.) “If I went away and stayed two months, you'd never forget the
utter freedom and joy of those two whole months with the house all to
yourselves.”

“Uncle William,” gasped Billy, “what _are_ you talking about?”

“About--about my not going back, of course.”

“But you are coming back,” cut in Bertram, almost angrily. “Oh, come,
Will, this is utter nonsense, and you know it! Come, let's go home to
dinner.”

A stern look came to the corners of William's mouth--a look that Bertram
understood well.

“All right, I'll go to dinner, of course; but I sha'n't stay,” said
William, firmly. “I've thought it all out. I know I'm right. Come, we'll
go to dinner now, and say no more about it,” he finished with a cheery
smile, as he rose to his feet. Then, to the bride, he added: “Did you
have a nice trip, little girl?”

Billy, too, had risen, now, but she did not seem to have heard his
question. In the fast falling twilight her face looked a little white.

“Uncle William,” she began very quietly, “do you think for a minute that
just because I married your brother I am going to live in that house and
turn you out of the home you've lived in all your life?”

“Nonsense, dear! I'm not turned out. I just go,” corrected Uncle
William, gayly.

With superb disdain Billy brushed this aside.

“Oh, no, you won't,” she declared; “but--_I shall_.”

“Billy!” gasped Bertram.

“My--my dear!” expostulated William, faintly.

“Uncle William! Bertram! Listen,” panted Billy. “I never told you much
before, but I'm going to, now. Long ago, when I went away with Aunt
Hannah, your sister Kate showed me how dear the old home was to
you--how much you thought of it. And she said--she said that I had
upset everything.” (Bertram interjected a sharp word, but Billy paid
no attention.) “That's why I went; and _I shall go again_--if you
don't come home to-morrow to stay, Uncle William. Come, now let's go to
dinner, please. Bertram's hungry,” she finished, with a bright smile.

There was a tense moment of silence. William glanced at Bertram; Bertram
returned the glance--with interest.

“Er--ah--yes; well, we might go to dinner,” stammered William, after a
minute.

“Er--yes,” agreed Bertram. And the three fell into step together.




CHAPTER IV. “JUST LIKE BILLY”


Billy did not leave the Strata this time. Before twenty-four hours had
passed, the last cherished fragment of Mr. William Henshaw's possessions
had been carefully carried down the imposing steps of the Beacon
Hill boarding-house under the disapproving eyes of its bugle-adorned
mistress, who found herself now with a month's advance rent and two
vacant “parlors” on her hands. Before another twenty-four hours had
passed her quondam boarder, with a tired sigh, sank into his favorite
morris chair in his old familiar rooms, and looked about him with
contented eyes. Every treasure was in place, from the traditional four
small stones of his babyhood days to the Batterseas Billy had just
brought him. Pete, as of yore, was hovering near with a dust-cloth.
Bertram's gay whistle sounded from the floor below. William Henshaw was
at home again.

This much accomplished, Billy went to see Aunt Hannah.

Aunt Hannah greeted her affectionately, though with tearfully troubled
eyes. She was wearing a gray shawl to-day topped with a black one--sure
sign of unrest, either physical or mental, as all her friends knew.

“I'd begun to think you'd forgotten--me,” she faltered, with a poor
attempt at gayety.

“You've been home three whole days.”

“I know, dearie,” smiled Billy; “and 'twas a shame. But I have been so
busy! My trunks came at last, and I've been helping Uncle William get
settled, too.”

Aunt Hannah looked puzzled.

“Uncle William get settled? You mean--he's changed his room?”

Billy laughed oddly, and threw a swift glance into Aunt Hannah's face.

“Well, yes, he did change,” she murmured; “but he's moved back now into
the old quarters. Er--you haven't heard from Uncle William then, lately,
I take it.”

“No.” Aunt Hannah shook her head abstractedly. “I did see him once,
several weeks ago; but I haven't, since. We had quite a talk, then;
and, Billy, I've been wanting to speak to you,” she hurried on, a little
feverishly. “I didn't like to leave, of course, till you did come home,
as long as you'd said nothing about your plans; but--”

“Leave!” interposed Billy, dazedly. “Leave where? What do you mean?”

“Why, leave here, of course, dear. I mean. I didn't like to get my room
while you were away; but I shall now, of course, at once.”

“Nonsense, Aunt Hannah! As if I'd let you do that,” laughed Billy.

Aunt Hannah stiffened perceptibly. Her lips looked suddenly thin and
determined. Even the soft little curls above her ears seemed actually to
bristle with resolution.

“Billy,” she began firmly, “we might as well understand each other at
once. I know your good heart, and I appreciate your kindness. But I can
not come to live with you. I shall not. It wouldn't be best. I should
be like an interfering elder brother in your home. I should spoil your
young married life; and if I went away for two months you'd never forget
the utter joy and freedom of those two months with the whole house ali
to yourselves.”

At the beginning of this speech Billy's eyes had still carried their
dancing smile, but as the peroration progressed on to the end, a dawning
surprise, which soon became a puzzled questioning, drove the smile away.
Then Billy sat suddenly erect.

“Why, Aunt Hannah, that's exactly what Uncle William--” Billy stopped,
and regarded Aunt Hannah with quick suspicion. The next moment she burst
into gleeful laughter.

Aunt Hannah looked grieved, and not a little surprised; but Billy did
not seem to notice this.

“Oh, oh, Aunt Hannah--you, too! How perfectly funny!” she gurgled. “To
think you two old blesseds should get your heads together like this!”

Aunt Hannah stirred restively, and pulled the black shawl more closely
about her.

“Indeed, Billy, I don't know what you mean by that,” she sighed, with a
visible effort at self-control; “but I do know that I can not go to live
with you.”

“Bless your heart, dear, I don't want you to,” soothed Billy, with gay
promptness.

“Oh! O-h-h,” stammered Aunt Hannah, surprise, mortification, dismay, and
a grieved hurt bringing a flood of color to her face. It is one thing to
refuse a home, and quite another to have a home refused you.

“Oh! O-h-h, Aunt Hannah,” cried Billy, turning very red in her turn.
“Please, _please_ don't look like that. I didn't mean it that way. I do
want you, dear, only--I want you somewhere else more. I want you--here.”

“Here!” Aunt Hannah looked relieved, but unconvinced.

“Yes. Don't you like it here?”

“Like it! Why, I love it, dear. You know I do. But you don't need this
house now, Billy.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” retorted Billy, airily. “I'm going to keep it up, and I
want you here.

“Fiddlededee, Billy! As if I'd let you keep up this house just for me,”
 scorned Aunt Hannah.

“'Tisn't just for you. It's for--for lots of folks.”

“My grief and conscience, Billy! What are you talking about?”

Billy laughed, and settled herself more comfortably on the hassock at
Aunt Hannah's feet.

“Well, I'll tell you. Just now I want it for Tommy Dunn, and the
Greggorys if I can get them, and maybe one or two others. There'll
always be somebody. You see, I had thought I'd have them at the Strata.”

“Tommy Dunn--at the Strata!”

Billy laughed again ruefully.

“O dear! You sound just like Bertram,” she pouted. “He didn't want
Tommy, either, nor any of the rest of them.”

“The rest of them!”

“Well, I could have had a lot more, you know, the Strata is so big,
especially now that Cyril has gone, and left all those empty rooms.
_I_ got real enthusiastic, but Bertram didn't. He just laughed and said
'nonsense!' until he found I was really in earnest; then he--well, he
said 'nonsense,' then, too--only he didn't laugh,” finished Billy, with
a sigh.

Aunt Hannah regarded her with fond, though slightly exasperated eyes.

“Billy, you are, indeed, a most extraordinary young woman--at times.
Surely, with you, a body never knows what to expect--except the
unexpected.”

“Why, Aunt Hannah!--and from you, too!” reproached Billy, mischievously;
but Aunt Hannah had yet more to say.

“Of course Bertram thought it was nonsense. The idea of you, a bride,
filling up your house with--with people like that! Tommy Dunn, indeed!”

“Oh, Bertram said he liked Tommy all right,” sighed Billy; “but he said
that that didn't mean he wanted him for three meals a day. One would
think poor Tommy was a breakfast food! So that is when I thought of
keeping up this house, you see, and that's why I want you here--to take
charge of it. And you'll do that--for me, won't you?”

Aunt Hannah fell back in her chair.

“Why, y-yes, Billy, of course, if--if you want it. But what an
extraordinary idea, child!”

Billy shook her head. A deeper color came to her cheeks, and a softer
glow to her eyes.

“I don't think so, Aunt Hannah. It's only that I'm so happy that some
of it has just got to overflow somewhere, and this is going to be the
overflow house--a sort of safety valve for me, you see. I'm going to
call it the Annex--it will be an annex to our home. And I want to keep
it full, always, of people who--who can make the best use of all that
extra happiness that I can't possibly use myself,” she finished a little
tremulously. “Don't you see?”

“Oh, yes, I _see_,” replied Aunt Hannah, with a fond shake of the head.

“But, really, listen--it's sensible,” urged Billy. “First, there's
Tommy. His mother died last month. He's at a neighbor's now, but they're
going to send him to a Home for Crippled Children; and he's grieving his
heart out over it. I'm going to bring him here to a real home--the kind
that doesn't begin with a capital letter. He adores music, and he's got
real talent, I think. Then there's the Greggorys.”

Aunt Hannah looked dubious.

“You can't get the Greggorys to--to use any of that happiness, Billy.
They're too proud.”

Billy smiled radiantly.

“I know I can't get them to _use_ it, Aunt Hannah, but I believe I can
get them to _give_ it,” she declared triumphantly. “I shall ask Alice
Greggory to teach Tommy music, and I shall ask Mrs. Greggory to teach
him books; and I shall tell them both that I positively need them to
keep you company.”

“Oh, but Billy,” bridled Aunt Hannah, with prompt objection.

“Tut, tut!--I know you'll be willing to be thrown as a little bit of a
sop to the Greggorys' pride,” coaxed Billy. “You just wait till I get
the Overflow Annex in running order. Why, Aunt Hannah, you don't know
how busy you're going to be handing out all that extra happiness that I
can't use!”

“You dear child!” Aunt Hannah smiled mistily. The black shawl had fallen
unheeded to the floor now. “As if anybody ever had any more happiness
than one's self could use!”

“I have,” avowed Billy, promptly, “and it's going to keep growing and
growing, I know.”

“Oh, my grief and conscience, Billy, don't!” exclaimed Aunt Hannah,
lifting shocked hands of remonstrance. “Rap on wood--do! How can you
boast like that?”

Billy dimpled roguishly and sprang to her feet.

“Why, Aunt Hannah, I'm ashamed of you! To be superstitious like
that--you, a good Presbyterian!”

Aunt Hannah subsided shamefacedly.

“Yes, I know, Billy, it is silly; but I just can't help it.”

“Oh, but it's worse than silly, Aunt Hannah,” teased Billy, with a
remorseless chuckle. “It's really _heathen!_ Bertram told me once that
it dates 'way back to the time of the Druids--appealing to the god of
trees, or something like that--when you rap on wood, you know.”

“Ugh!” shuddered Aunt Hannah. “As if I would, Billy! How is Bertram, by
the by?”

A swift shadow crossed Billy's bright face.

“He's lovely--only his arm.”

“His arm! But I thought that was better.”

“Oh, it is,” drooped Billy, “but it gets along so slowly, and it frets
him dreadfully. You know he never can do anything with his left hand,
he says, and he just hates to have things done for him--though Pete and
Dong Ling are quarreling with each other all the time to do things for
him, and I'm quarreling with both of them to do them for him myself! By
the way, Dong Ling is going to leave us next week. Did you know it?”

“Dong Ling--leave!”

“Yes. Oh, he told Bertram long ago he should go when we were married;
that he had plenty much money, and was going back to China, and not be
Melican man any longer. But I don't think Bertram thought he'd do it.
William says Dong Ling went to Pete, however, after we left, and told
him he wanted to go; that he liked the little Missee plenty well, but
that there'd be too much hen-talk when she got back, and--”

“Why, the impudent creature!”

Billy laughed merrily.

“Yes; Pete was furious, William says, but Dong Ling didn't mean any
disrespect, I'm sure. He just wasn't used to having petticoats around,
and didn't want to take orders from them; that's all.”

“But, Billy, what will you do?”

“Oh, Pete's fixed all that lovely,” returned Billy, nonchalantly. “You
know his niece lives over in South Boston, and it seems she's got a
daughter who's a fine cook and will be glad to come. Mercy! Look at the
time,” she broke off, glancing at the clock. “I shall be late to dinner,
and Dong Ling loathes anybody who's late to his meals--as I found out to
my sorrow the night we got home. Good-by, dear. I'll be out soon again
and fix it all up--about the Annex, you know.” And with a bright smile
she was gone.

“Dear me,” sighed Aunt Hannah, stooping to pick up the black shawl;
“dear me! Of course everything will be all right--there's a girl coming,
even if Dong Ling is going. But--but--Oh, my grief and conscience, what
an extraordinary child Billy is, to be sure--but what a dear one!” she
added, wiping a quick tear from her eye. “An Overflow Annex, indeed, for
her 'extra happiness'! Now isn't that just like Billy?”




CHAPTER V. TIGER SKINS


September passed and October came, bringing with it cool days and clear,
crisp evenings royally ruled over by a gorgeous harvest moon. According
to Billy everything was just perfect--except, of course, poor Bertram's
arm; and even the fact that that gained so slowly was not without its
advantage (again according to Billy), for it gave Bertram more time to
be with her.

“You see, dear, as long as you _can't_ paint,” she told him earnestly,
one day, “why, I'm not really hindering you by keeping you with me so
much.”

“You certainly are not,” he retorted, with a smile.

“Then I may be just as happy as I like over it,” settled Billy,
comfortably.

“As if you ever could hinder me,” he ridiculed.

“Oh, yes, I could,” nodded Billy, emphatically. “You forget, sir. That
was what worried me so. Everybody, even the newspapers and magazines,
said I _would_ do it, too. They said I'd slay your Art, stifle your
Ambition, destroy your Inspiration, and be a nuisance generally. And
Kate said--”

“Yes. Well, never mind what Kate said,” interrupted the man, savagely.

Billy laughed, and gave his ear a playful tweak.

“All right; but I'm not going to do it, you know--spoil your career,
sir. You just wait,” she continued dramatically. “The minute your arm
gets so you can paint, I myself shall conduct you to your studio, thrust
the brushes into your hand, fill your palette with all the colors of
the rainbow, and order you to paint, my lord, paint! But--until then I'm
going to have you all I like,” she finished, with a complete change of
manner, nestling into the ready curve of his good left arm.

“You witch!” laughed the man, fondly. “Why, Billy, you couldn't hinder
me. You'll _be_ my inspiration, dear, instead of slaying it. You'll see.
_This_ time Marguerite Winthrop's portrait is going to be a success.”

Billy turned quickly.

“Then you are--that is, you haven't--I mean, you're going to--paint it?”

“I just am,” avowed the artist. “And this time it'll be a success, too,
with you to help.”

Billy drew in her breath tremulously.

“I didn't know but you'd already started it,” she faltered.

He shook his head.

“No. After the other one failed, and Mr. Winthrop asked me to try again,
I couldn't _then_. I was so troubled over you. That's the time you did
hinder me,” he smiled. “Then came your note breaking the engagement. Of
course I knew too much to attempt a thing like that portrait then. But
now--_now_--!” The pause and the emphasis were eloquent.

“Of course, _now_,” nodded Billy, brightly, but a little feverishly.
“And when do you begin?”

“Not till January. Miss Winthrop won't be back till then. I saw J. G.
last week, and I told him I'd accept his offer to try again.”

“What did he say?”

“He gave my left hand a big grip and said: 'Good!--and you'll win out
this time.'”

“Of course you will,” nodded Billy, again, though still a little
feverishly. “And this time I sha'n't mind a bit if you do stay to
luncheon, and break engagements with me, sir,” she went on, tilting
her chin archly, “for I shall know it's the portrait and not the sitter
that's really keeping you. Oh, you'll see what a fine artist's wife I'll
make!”

“The very best,” declared Bertram so ardently that Billy blushed, and
shook her head in reproof.

“Nonsense! I wasn't fishing. I didn't mean it that way,” she protested.
Then, as he tried to catch her, she laughed and danced teasingly out of
his reach.

Because Bertram could not paint, therefore, Billy had him quite to
herself these October days; nor did she hesitate to appropriate him.
Neither, on his part, was Bertram loath to be appropriated. Like two
lovers they read and walked and talked together, and like two children,
sometimes, they romped through the stately old rooms with Spunkie, or
with Tommy Dunn, who was a frequent guest. Spunkie, be it known, was
renewing her kittenhood, so potent was the influence of the dangling
strings and rolling balls that she encountered everywhere; and Tommy
Dunn, with Billy's help, was learning that not even a pair of crutches
need keep a lonely little lad from a frolic. Even William, roused from
his after-dinner doze by peals of laughter, was sometimes inveigled into
activities that left him breathless, but curiously aglow. While Pete,
polishing silver in the dining-room down-stairs, smiled indulgently at
the merry clatter above--and forgot the teasing pain in his side.

But it was not all nonsense with Billy, nor gay laughter. More often
it was a tender glow in the eyes, a softness in the voice, a radiant
something like an aura of joy all about her, that told how happy indeed
were these days for her. There was proof by word of mouth, too--long
talks with Bertram in the dancing firelight when they laid dear
plans for the future, and when she tried so hard to make her husband
understand what a good, good wife she intended to be, and how she meant
never to let anything come between them.

It was so earnest and serious a Billy by this time that Bertram would
turn startled, dismayed eyes on his young wife; whereupon, with a very
Billy-like change of mood, she would give him one of her rare caresses,
and perhaps sigh:

“Goosey--it's only because I'm so happy, happy, happy! Why, Bertram, if
it weren't for that Overflow Annex I believe I--I just couldn't live!”

It was Bertram who sighed then, and who prayed fervently in his heart
that never might he see a real shadow cloud that dear face.

Thus far, certainly, the cares of matrimony had rested anything but
heavily upon the shapely young shoulders of the new wife. Domestic
affairs at the Strata moved like a piece of well-oiled machinery.
Dong Ling, to be sure, was not there; but in his place reigned Pete's
grandniece, a fresh-faced, capable young woman who (Bertram declared)
cooked like an angel and minded her own business like a man. Pete, as
of yore, had full charge of the house; and a casual eye would see few
changes. Even the brothers themselves saw few, for that matter.

True, at the very first, Billy had donned a ruffled apron and a
bewitching dust-cap, and had traversed the house from cellar to garret
with a prettily important air of “managing things,” as she suggested
changes right and left. She had summoned Pete, too, for three mornings
in succession, and with great dignity had ordered the meals for the day.
But when Bertram was discovered one evening tugging back his favorite
chair, and when William had asked if Billy were through using his
pipe-tray, the young wife had concluded to let things remain about as
they were. And when William ate no breakfast one morning, and Bertram
aggrievedly refused dessert that night at dinner, Billy--learning
through an apologetic Pete that Master William always had to have eggs
for breakfast no matter what else there was, and that Master Bertram
never ate boiled rice--gave up planning the meals. True, for three more
mornings she summoned Pete for “orders,” but the orders were nothing
more nor less than a blithe “Well, Pete, what are we going to have for
dinner to-day?” By the end of a week even this ceremony was given up,
and before a month had passed, Billy was little more than a guest in her
own home, so far as responsibility was concerned.

Billy was not idle, however; far from it. First, there were the
delightful hours with Bertram. Then there was her music: Billy was
writing a new song--the best she had ever written, Billy declared.

“Why, Bertram, it can't help being that,” she said to her husband, one
day. “The words just sang themselves to me right out of my heart; and
the melody just dropped down from the sky. And now, everywhere, I'm
hearing the most wonderful harmonies. The whole universe is singing to
me. If only now I can put it on paper what I hear! Then I can make the
whole universe sing to some one else!”

Even music, however, had to step one side for the wedding calls which
were beginning to be received, and which must be returned, in spite
of the occasional rebellion of the young husband. There were the more
intimate friends to be seen, also, and Cyril and Marie to be visited.
And always there was the Annex.

The Annex was in fine running order now, and was a source of infinite
satisfaction to its founder and great happiness to its beneficiaries.
Tommy Dunn was there, learning wonderful things from books and still
more wonderful things from the piano in the living-room. Alice Greggory
and her mother were there, too--the result of much persuasion. Indeed,
according to Bertram, Billy had been able to fill the Annex only
by telling each prospective resident that he or she was absolutely
necessary to the welfare and happiness of every other resident. Not that
the house was full, either. There were still two unoccupied rooms.

“But then, I'm glad there are,” Billy had declared, “for there's sure to
be some one that I'll want to send there.”

“Some _one_, did you say?” Bertram had retorted, meaningly; but his wife
had disdained to answer this.

Billy herself was frequently at the Annex. She told Aunt Hannah that
she had to come often to bring the happiness--it accumulated so fast.
Certainly she always found plenty to do there, whenever she came. There
was Aunt Hannah to be read to, Mrs. Greggory to be sung to, and Tommy
Dunn to be listened to; for Tommy Dunn was always quivering with
eagerness to play her his latest “piece.”

Billy knew that some day at the Annex she would meet Mr. M. J.
Arkwright; and she told herself that she hoped she should.

Billy had not seen Arkwright (except on the stage of the Boston Opera
House) since the day he had left her presence in white-faced, stony-eyed
misery after declaring his love for her, and learning of her engagement
to Bertram. Since then, she knew, he had been much with his old friend,
Alice Greggory. She did not believe, should she see him now, that he
would be either white-faced, or stony-eyed. His heart, she was sure,
had gone where it ought to have gone in the first place--to Alice. Such
being, in her opinion, the case, she longed to get the embarrassment of
a first meeting between themselves over with, for, after that, she
was sure, their old friendship could be renewed, and she would be in a
position to further this pretty love affair between him and Alice. Very
decidedly, therefore, Billy wished to meet Arkwright. Very pleased,
consequently, was she when, one day, coming into the living-room at the
Annex, she found the man sitting by the fire.

Arkwright was on his feet at once.

“Miss--Mrs. H--Henshaw,” he stammered

“Oh, Mr. Arkwright,” she cried, with just a shade of nervousness in her
voice as she advanced, her hand outstretched. “I'm glad to see you.”

“Thank you. I wanted to see Miss Greggory,” he murmured. Then, as
the unconscious rudeness of his reply dawned on him, he made matters
infinitely worse by an attempted apology. “That is, I mean--I didn't
mean--” he began to stammer miserably.

Some girls might have tossed the floundering man a straw in the shape of
a light laugh intended to turn aside all embarrassment--but not Billy.
Billy held out a frankly helping hand that was meant to set the man
squarely on his feet at her side.

“Mr. Arkwright, don't, please,” she begged earnestly. “You and I don't
need to beat about the bush. I _am_ glad to see you, and I hope you're
glad to see me. We're going to be the best of friends from now on, I'm
sure; and some day, soon, you're going to bring Alice to see me, and
we'll have some music. I left her up-stairs. She'll be down at once,
I dare say--I met Rosa going up with your card. Good-by,” she finished
with a bright smile, as she turned and walked rapidly from the room.

Outside, on the steps, Billy drew a long breath.

“There,” she whispered; “that's over--and well over!” The next minute
she frowned vexedly. She had missed her glove. “Never mind! I sha'n't go
back in there for it now, anyway,” she decided.

In the living-room, five minutes later, Alice Greggory found only a
hastily scrawled note waiting for her.


“If you'll forgive the unforgivable,” she read “you'll forgive me for
not being here when you come down. 'Circumstances over which I have no
control have called me away.' May we let it go at that?

“M. J. ARKWRIGHT.”


As Alice Greggory's amazed, questioning eyes left the note they fell
upon the long white glove on the floor by the door. Half mechanically
she crossed the room and picked it up; but almost at once she dropped it
with a low cry.

“Billy! He--saw--Billy!” Then a flood of understanding dyed her face
scarlet as she turned and fled to the blessedly unseeing walls of her
own room.

Not ten minutes later Rosa tapped at her door with a note.

“It's from Mr. Arkwright, Miss. He's downstairs.” Rosa's eyes were
puzzled, and a bit startled.

“Mr. Arkwright!”

“Yes, Miss. He's come again. That is, I didn't know he'd went--but he
must have, for he's come again now. He wrote something in a little book;
then he tore it out and gave it to me. He said he'd wait, please, for an
answer.”

“Oh, very well, Rosa.”

Miss Greggory took the note and spoke with an elaborate air of
indifference that was meant to express a calm ignoring of the puzzled
questioning in the other's eyes. The next moment she read this in
Arkwright's peculiar scrawl:


“If you've already forgiven the unforgivable, you'll do it again, I
know, and come down-stairs. Won't you, please? I want to see you.”


Miss Greggory lifted her head with a jerk. Her face was a painful red.

“Tell Mr. Arkwright I can't possibly--” She came to an abrupt pause. Her
eyes had encountered Rosa's, and in Rosa's eyes the puzzled questioning
was plainly fast becoming a shrewd suspicion.

There was the briefest of hesitations; then, lightly, Miss Greggory
tossed the note aside.

“Tell Mr. Arkwright I'll be down at once, please,” she directed
carelessly, as she turned back into the room.

But she was not down at once. She was not down until she had taken time
to bathe her red eyes, powder her telltale nose, smoothe her ruffled
hair, and whip herself into the calm, steady-eyed, self-controlled young
woman that Arkwright finally rose to meet when she came into the room.

“I thought it was only women who were privileged to change their mind,”
she began brightly; but Arkwright ignored her attempt to conventionalize
the situation.

“Thank you for coming down,” he said, with a weariness that instantly
drove the forced smile from the girl's lips. “I--I wanted to--to talk to
you.”

“Yes?” She seated herself and motioned him to a chair near her. He took
the seat, and then fell silent, his eyes out the window.

“I thought you said you--you wanted to talk, she reminded him nervously,
after a minute.

“I did.” He turned with disconcerting abruptness. “Alice, I'm going to
tell you a story.”

“I shall be glad to listen. People always like stories, don't they?”

“Do they?” The somber pain in Arkwright's eyes deepened. Alice Greggory
did not know it, but he was thinking of another story he had once told
in that same room. Billy was his listener then, while now--A little
precipitately he began to speak.

“When I was a very small boy I went to visit my uncle, who, in his young
days, had been quite a hunter. Before the fireplace in his library was a
huge tiger skin with a particularly lifelike head. The first time I saw
it I screamed, and ran and hid. I refused then even to go into the room
again. My cousins urged, scolded, pleaded, and laughed at me by turns,
but I was obdurate. I would not go where I could see the fearsome thing
again, even though it was, as they said, 'nothing but a dead old rug!'

“Finally, one day, my uncle took a hand in the matter. By sheer
will-power he forced me to go with him straight up to the dreaded
creature, and stand by its side. He laid one of my shrinking hands on
the beast's smooth head, and thrust the other one quite into the open
red mouth with its gleaming teeth.

“'You see,' he said, 'there's absolutely nothing to fear. He can't
possibly hurt you. Just as if you weren't bigger and finer and stronger
in every way than that dead thing on the floor!'

“Then, when he had got me to the point where of my own free will I would
walk up and touch the thing, he drew a lesson for me.

“'Now remember,' he charged me. 'Never run and hide again. Only cowards
do that. Walk straight up and face the thing. Ten to one you'll find
it's nothing but a dead skin masquerading as the real thing. Even if it
isn't if it's alive--face it. Find a weapon and fight it. Know that you
are going to conquer it and you'll conquer. Never run. Be a man. Men
don't run, my boy!'”

Arkwright paused, and drew a long breath. He did not look at the girl
in the opposite chair. If he had looked he would have seen a face
transfigured.

“Well,” he resumed, “I never forgot that tiger skin, nor what it stood
for, after that day when Uncle Ben thrust my hand into its hideous, but
harmless, red mouth. Even as a kid I began, then, to try--not to run.
I've tried ever since But to-day--I did run.”

Arkwright's voice had been getting lower and lower. The last three words
would have been almost inaudible to ears less sensitively alert than
were Alice Greggory's. For a moment after the words were uttered, only
the clock's ticking broke the silence; then, with an obvious effort, the
man roused himself, as if breaking away from some benumbing force that
held him.

“Alice, I don't need to tell you, after what I said the other night,
that I loved Billy Neilson. That was bad enough, for I found she was
pledged to another man. But to-day I discovered something worse: I
discovered that I loved Billy _Henshaw_--another man's wife. And--I ran.
But I've come back. I'm going to face the thing. Oh, I'm not deceiving
myself! This love of mine is no dead tiger skin. It's a beast, alive and
alert--God pity me!--to destroy my very soul. But I'm going to fight it;
and--I want you to help me.”

The girl gave a half-smothered cry. The man turned, but he could not
see her face distinctly. Twilight had come, and the room was full of
shadows. He hesitated, then went on, a little more quietly.

“That's why I've told you all this--so you would help me. And you will,
won't you?”

There was no answer. Once again he tried to see her face, but it was
turned now quite away from him.

“You've been a big help already, little girl. Your friendship, your
comradeship--they've been everything to me. You're not going to make me
do without them--now?”

“No--oh, no!” The answer was low and a little breathless; but he heard
it.

“Thank you. I knew you wouldn't.” He paused, then rose to his feet. When
he spoke again his voice carried a note of whimsical lightness that was
a little forced. “But I must go--else you _will_ take them from me,
and with good reason. And please don't let your kind heart grieve too
much--over me. I'm no deep-dyed villain in a melodrama, nor wicked lover
in a ten-penny novel, you know. I'm just an everyday man in real life;
and we're going to fight this thing out in everyday living. That's where
your help is coming in. We'll go together to see Mrs. Bertram Henshaw.
She's asked us to, and you'll do it, I know. We'll have music and
everyday talk. We'll see Mrs. Bertram Henshaw in her own home with her
husband, where she belongs; and--I'm not going to run again. But--I'm
counting on your help, you know,” he smiled a little wistfully, as he
held out his hand in good-by.

One minute later Alice Greggory, alone, was hurrying up-stairs.

“I can't--I can't--I know I can't,” she was whispering wildly. Then,
in her own room, she faced herself in the mirror. “Yes--you--can, Alice
Greggory,” she asserted, with swift change of voice and manner. “This
is _your_ tiger skin, and you're going to fight it. Do you
understand?--fight it! And you're going to win, too. Do you want that
man to know you--_care_?”




CHAPTER VI. “THE PAINTING LOOK”


It was toward the last of October that Billy began to notice her
husband's growing restlessness. Twice, when she had been playing to
him, she turned to find him testing the suppleness of his injured arm.
Several times, failing to receive an answer to her questions, she had
looked up to discover him gazing abstractedly at nothing in particular.

They read and walked and talked together, to be sure, and Bertram's
devotion to her lightest wish was beyond question; but more and more
frequently these days Billy found him hovering over his sketches in his
studio; and once, when he failed to respond to the dinner-bell,
search revealed him buried in a profound treatise on “The Art of
Foreshortening.”

Then came the day when Billy, after an hour's vain effort to imprison
within notes a tantalizing melody, captured the truant and rain down to
the studio to tell Bertram of her victory.

But Bertram did not seem even to hear her. True, he leaped to his feet
and hurried to meet her, his face radiantly aglow; but she had not
ceased to speak before he himself was talking.

“Billy, Billy, I've been sketching,” he cried. “My hand is almost
steady. See, some of those lines are all right! I just picked up a
crayon and--” He stopped abruptly, his eyes on Billy's face. A vaguely
troubled shadow crossed his own. “Did--did you--were you saying anything
in--in particular, when you came in?” he stammered.

For a short half-minute Billy looked at her husband without speaking.
Then, a little queerly, she laughed.

“Oh, no, nothing at all in _particular_,” she retorted airily. The next
moment, with one of her unexpected changes of manner, she darted across
the room, picked up a palette, and a handful of brushes from the
long box near it. Advancing toward her husband she held them out
dramatically. “And now paint, my lord, paint!” she commanded him, with
stern insistence, as she thrust them into his hands.

Bertram laughed shamefacedly.

“Oh, I say, Billy,” he began; but Billy had gone.

Out in the hall Billy was speeding up-stairs, talking fiercely to
herself.

“We'll, Billy Neilson Henshaw, it's come! Now behave yourself. _That was
the painting look!_ You know what that means. Remember, he belongs to
his Art before he does to you. Kate and everybody says so. And you--you
expected him to tend to you and your silly little songs. Do you want to
ruin his career? As if now he could spend all his time and give all his
thoughts to you! But I--I just hate that Art!”

“What did you say, Billy?” asked William, in mild surprise, coming
around the turn of the balustrade in the hall above. “Were you speaking
to me, my dear?”

Billy looked up. Her face cleared suddenly, and she laughed--though a
little ruefully.

“No, Uncle William, I wasn't talking to you,” she sighed. “I was
just--just administering first aid to the injured,” she finished, as she
whisked into her own room.

“Well, well, bless the child! What can she mean by that?” puzzled Uncle
William, turning to go down the stairway.

Bertram began to paint a very little the next day. He painted still more
the next, and yet more again the day following. He was like a bird let
out of a cage, so joyously alive was he. The old sparkle came back to
his eye, the old gay smile to his lips. Now that they had come back
Billy realized what she had not been conscious of before: that for
several weeks past they had not been there; and she wondered which hurt
the more--that they had not been there before, or that they were there
now. Then she scolded herself roundly for asking the question at all.

They were not easy--those days for Billy, though always to Bertram she
managed to show a cheerfully serene face. To Uncle William, also, and to
Aunt Hannah she showed a smiling countenance; and because she could
not talk to anybody else of her feelings, she talked to herself. This,
however, was no new thing for Billy to do From earliest childhood she
had fought things out in like manner.

“But it's so absurd of you, Billy Henshaw,” she berated herself one day,
when Bertram had become so absorbed in his work that he had forgotten to
keep his appointment with her for a walk. “Just because you have had his
constant attention almost every hour since you were married is no reason
why you should have it every hour now, when his arm is better! Besides,
it's exactly what you said you wouldn't do--object--to his giving proper
time to his work.”

“But I'm not objecting,” stormed the other half of herself. “I'm
_telling_ him to do it. It's only that he's so--so _pleased_ to do it.
He doesn't seem to mind a bit being away from me. He's actually happy!”

“Well, don't you want him to be happy in his work? Fie! For shame! A
fine artist's wife you are. It seems Kate was right, then; you _are_
going to spoil his career!”

“Ho!” quoth Billy, and tossed her head. Forthwith she crossed the room
to her piano and plumped herself down hard on to the stool. Then, from
under her fingers there fell a rollicking melody that seemed to fill the
room with little dancing feet. Faster and faster sped Billy's fingers;
swifter and swifter twinkled the little dancing feet. Then a door was
jerked open, and Bertram's voice called:

“Billy!”

The music stopped instantly. Billy sprang from her seat, her
eyes eagerly seeking the direction from which had come the voice.
Perhaps--_perhaps_ Bertram wanted her. Perhaps he was not going to paint
any longer that morning, after all. “Billy!” called the voice again.
“Please, do you mind stopping that playing just for a little while? I'm
a brute, I know, dear, but my brush _will_ try to keep time with that
crazy little tune of yours, and you know my hand is none too steady,
anyhow, and when it tries to keep up with that jiggety, jig, jig,
jiggety, jig, jig--! _Do_ you mind, darling, just--just sewing, or
doing something still for a while?”

All the light fled from Billy's face, but her voice, when she spoke, was
the quintessence of cheery indifference.

“Why, no, of course not, dear.”

“Thank you. I knew you wouldn't,” sighed Bertram. Then the door shut.

For a long minute Billy stood motionless before she glanced at her watch
and sped to the telephone.

“Is Miss Greggory there, Rosa?” she called when the operator's ring was
answered.

“Mis' Greggory, the lame one?”

“No; _Miss_ Greggory--Miss Alice.”

“Oh! Yes'm.”

“Then won't you ask her to come to the telephone, please.”

There was a moment's wait, during which Billy's small, well-shod foot
beat a nervous tattoo on the floor.

“Oh, is that you, Alice?” she called then. “Are you going to be home for
an hour or two?”

“Why, y-yes; yes, indeed.”

“Then I'm coming over. We'll play duets, sing--anything. I want some
music.”

“Do! And--Mr. Arkwright is here. He'll help.”

“Mr. Arkwright? You say he's there? Then I won't--Yes, I will, too.”
 Billy spoke with renewed firmness. “I'll be there right away. Good-by.”
 And she hung up the receiver, and went to tell Pete to order John and
Peggy at once.

“I suppose I ought to have left Alice and Mr. Arkwright alone together,”
 muttered the young wife feverishly, as she hurriedly prepared for
departure. “But I'll make it up to them later. I'm going to give them
lots of chances. But to-day--to-day I just had to go--somewhere!”

At the Annex, with Alice Greggory and Arkwright, Billy sang duets and
trios, and reveled in a sonorous wilderness of new music to her heart's
content. Then, rested, refreshed, and at peace with all the world, she
hurried home to dinner and to Bertram.

“There! I feel better,” she sighed, as she took off her hat in her
own room; “and now I'll go find Bertram. Bless his heart--of course he
didn't want me to play when he was so busy!”

Billy went straight to the studio, but Bertram was not there. Neither
was he in William's room, nor anywhere in the house. Down-stairs in
the dining-room Pete was found looking rather white, leaning back in
a chair. He struggled at once to his feet, however, as his mistress
entered the room.

Billy hurried forward with a startled exclamation.

“Why, Pete, what is it? Are you sick?” she cried, her glance
encompassing the half-set table.

“No, ma'am; oh, no, ma'am!” The old man stumbled forward and began
to arrange the knives and forks. “It's just a pesky pain--beggin' yer
pardon--in my side. But I ain't sick. No, Miss--ma'am.”

Billy frowned and shook her head. Her eyes were on Pete's palpably
trembling hands.

“But, Pete, you are sick,” she protested. “Let Eliza do that.”

Pete drew himself stiffly erect. The color had begun to come back to his
face.

“There hain't no one set this table much but me for more'n fifty years,
an' I've got a sort of notion that nobody can do it just ter suit me.
Besides, I'm better now. It's gone--that pain.”

“But, Pete, what is it? How long have you had it?”

“I hain't had it any time, steady. It's the comin' an' goin' kind. It
seems silly ter mind it at all; only, when it does come, it sort o'
takes the backbone right out o' my knees, and they double up so's I
have ter set down. There, ye see? I'm pert as a sparrer, now!” And, with
stiff celerity, Pete resumed his task.

His mistress still frowned.

“That isn't right, Pete,” she demurred, with a slow shake of her head.
“You should see a doctor.”

The old man paled a little. He had seen a doctor, and he had not liked
what the doctor had told him. In fact, he stubbornly refused to
believe what the doctor had said. He straightened himself now a little
aggressively.

“Humph! Beggin' yer pardon, Miss--ma'am, but I don't think much o' them
doctor chaps.”

Billy shook her head again as she smiled and turned away. Then, as if
casually, she asked:

“Oh, did Mr. Bertram go out, Pete?”

“Yes, Miss; about five o'clock. He said he'd be back to dinner.”

“Oh! All right.”

From the hall the telephone jangled sharply.

“I'll go,” said Pete's mistress, as she turned and hurried up-stairs.

It was Bertram's voice that answered her opening “Hullo.”

“Oh, Billy, is that you, dear? Well, you're just the one I wanted. I
wanted to say--that is, I wanted to ask you--” The speaker cleared
his throat a little nervously, and began all over again. “The fact is,
Billy, I've run across a couple of old classmates on from New York, and
they are very anxious I should stay down to dinner with them. Would you
mind--very much if I did?”

A cold hand seemed to clutch Billy's heart. She caught her breath with
a little gasp and tried to speak; but she had to try twice before the
words came.

“Why, no--no, of course not!” Billy's voice was very high-pitched and a
little shaky, but it was surpassingly cheerful.

“You sure you won't be--lonesome?” Bertram's voice was vaguely troubled.

“Of course not!”

“You've only to say the word, little girl,” came Bertram's anxious tones
again, “and I won't stay.”

Billy swallowed convulsively. If only, only he would _stop_ and leave
her to herself! As if she were going to own up that _she_ was lonesome
for _him_--if _he_ was not lonesome for _her!_

“Nonsense! of course you'll stay,” called Billy, still in that
high-pitched, shaky treble. Then, before Bertram could answer, she
uttered a gay “Good-by!” and hung up the receiver.

Billy had ten whole minutes in which to cry before Pete's gong sounded
for dinner; but she had only one minute in which to try to efface the
woefully visible effects of those ten minutes before William tapped at
her door, and called:

“Gone to sleep, my dear? Dinner's ready. Didn't you hear the gong?”

“Yes, I'm coming, Uncle William.” Billy spoke with breezy gayety, and
threw open the door; but she did not meet Uncle William's eyes. Her head
was turned away. Her hands were fussing with the hang of her skirt.

“Bertram's dining out, Pete tells me,” observed William, with cheerful
nonchalance, as they went down-stairs together.

Billy bit her lip and looked up sharply. She had been bracing herself to
meet with disdainful indifference this man's pity--the pity due a poor
neglected wife whose husband _preferred_ to dine with old classmates
rather than with herself. Now she found in William's face, not pity, but
a calm, even jovial, acceptance of the situation as a matter of course.
She had known she was going to hate that pity; but now, curiously
enough, she was conscious only of anger that the pity was not
there--that she might hate it.

She tossed her head a little. So even William--Uncle William--regarded
this monstrous thing as an insignificant matter of everyday experience.
Maybe he expected it to occur frequently--every night, or so. Doubtless
he did expect it to occur every night, or so. Indeed! Very well. As if
she were going to show _now_ that she cared whether Bertram were there
or not! They should see.

So with head held high and eyes asparkle, Billy marched into the
dining-room and took her accustomed place.




CHAPTER VII. THE BIG BAD QUARREL


It was a brilliant dinner--because Billy made it so. At first William
met her sallies of wit with mild surprise; but it was not long before
he rose gallantly to the occasion, and gave back full measure of retort.
Even Pete twice had to turn his back to hide a smile, and once his hand
shook so that the tea he was carrying almost spilled. This threatened
catastrophe, however, seemed to frighten him so much that his face was
very grave throughout the rest of the dinner.

Still laughing and talking gayly, Billy and Uncle William, after the
meal was over, ascended to the drawing-room. There, however, the man, in
spite of the young woman's gay badinage, fell to dozing in the big chair
before the fire, leaving Billy with only Spunkie for company--Spunkie,
who, disdaining every effort to entice her into a romp, only winked and
blinked stupid eyes, and finally curled herself on the rug for a nap.

Billy, left to her own devices, glanced at her watch.

Half-past seven! Time, almost, for Bertram to be coming. He had said
“dinner”; and, of course, after dinner was over he would be coming
home--to her. Very well; she would show him that she had at least got
along without him as well as he had without her. At all events he
would not find her forlornly sitting with her nose pressed against the
window-pane! And forthwith Billy established herself in a big chair
(with its back carefully turned toward the door by which Bertram would
enter), and opened a book.

Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed. Billy fidgeted in her chair, twisted
her neck to look out into the hall--and dropped her book with a bang.

Uncle William jerked himself awake, and Spunkie opened sleepy eyes. Then
both settled themselves for another nap. Billy sighed, picked up
her book, and flounced back into her chair. But she did not read.
Disconsolately she sat staring straight ahead--until a quick step on
the sidewalk outside stirred her into instant action. Assuming a look
of absorbed interest she twitched the book open and held it before her
face.... But the step passed by the door: and Billy saw then that her
book was upside down.

Five, ten, fifteen more minutes passed. Billy still sat, apparently
reading, though she had not turned a page. The book now, however, was
right side up. One by one other minutes passed till the great clock in
the hall struck nine long strokes.

“Well, well, bless my soul!” mumbled Uncle William, resolutely forcing
himself to wake up. “What time was that?”

“Nine o'clock.” Billy spoke with tragic distinctness, yet very
cheerfully.

“Eh? Only nine?” blinked Uncle William. “I thought it must be ten. Well,
anyhow, I believe I'll go up-stairs. I seem to be unusually sleepy.”

Billy said nothing. “'Only nine,' indeed!” she was thinking wrathfully.

At the door Uncle William turned.

“You're not going to sit up, my dear, of course,” he remarked.

For the second time that evening a cold hand seemed to clutch Billy's
heart.

_Sit up!_ Had it come already to that? Was she even now a wife who had
need to _sit up_ for her husband?

“I really wouldn't, my dear,” advised Uncle William again. “Good night.”

“Oh, but I'm not sleepy at all, yet,” Billy managed to declare brightly.
“Good night.”

Then Uncle William went up-stairs.

Billy turned to her book, which happened to be one of William's on “Fake
Antiques.”

“'To collect anything, these days, requires expert knowledge, and the
utmost care and discrimination,'” read Billy's eyes. “So Uncle William
_expected_ Bertram was going to spend the whole evening as well as stay
to dinner!” ran Billy's thoughts. “'The enormous quantity of bijouterie,
Dresden and Battersea enamel ware that is now flooding the market,
is made on the Continent--and made chiefly for the American trade,'”
 continued the book.

“Well, who cares if it is,” snapped Billy, springing to her feet and
tossing the volume aside. “Spunkie, come here! You've simply got to play
with me. Do you hear? I want to be gay--_gay_--GAY! He's gay. He's down
there with those men, where he wants to be. Where he'd _rather_ be than
be with me! Do you think I want him to come home and find me moping over
a stupid old book? Not much! I'm going to have him find me gay, too.
Now, come, Spunkie; hurry--wake up! He'll be here right away, I'm sure.”
 And Billy shook a pair of worsted reins, hung with little soft balls,
full in Spunkie's face.

But Spunkie would not wake up, and Spunkie would not play. She pretended
to. She bit at the reins, and sank her sharp claws into the dangling
balls. For a fleeting instant, even, something like mischief gleamed in
her big yellow eyes. Then the jaws relaxed, the paws turned to velvet,
and Spunkie's sleek gray head settled slowly back into lazy comfort.
Spunkie was asleep.

Billy gazed at the cat with reproachful eyes.

“And you, too, Spunkie,” she murmured. Then she got to her feet and went
back to her chair. This time she picked up a magazine and began to turn
the leaves very fast, one after another.

Half-past nine came, then ten. Pete appeared at the door to get Spunkie,
and to see that everything was all right for the night.

“Mr. Bertram is not in yet?” he began doubtfully.

Billy shook her head with a bright smile.

“No, Pete. Go to bed. I expect him every minute. Good night.”

“Thank you, ma'am. Good night.”

The old man picked up the sleepy cat and went down-stairs. A little
later Billy heard his quiet steps coming back through the hall and
ascending the stairs. She listened until from away at the top of the
house she heard his door close. Then she drew a long breath.

Ten o'clock--after ten o'clock, and Bertram not there yet! And was this
what he called dinner? Did one eat, then, till ten o'clock, when one
dined with one's friends?

Billy was angry now--very angry. She was too angry to be reasonable.
This thing that her husband had done seemed monstrous to her, smarting,
as she was, under the sting of hurt pride and grieved loneliness--the
state of mind into which she had worked herself. No longer now did she
wish to be gay when her husband came. No longer did she even pretend to
assume indifference. Bertram had done wrong. He had been unkind, cruel,
thoughtless, inconsiderate of her comfort and happiness. Furthermore he
_did not_ love her as well as she did him or he never, never could have
done it! She would let him see, when he came, just how hurt and grieved
she was--and how disappointed, too.

Billy was walking the floor now, back and forth, back and forth.

Half-past ten came, then eleven. As the eleven long strokes reverberated
through the silent house Billy drew in her breath and held it suspended.
A new look came to her eyes. A growing terror crept into them and
culminated in a frightened stare at the clock.

Billy ran then to the great outer door and pulled it open. A cold wind
stung her face, and caused her to shut the door quickly. Back and forth
she began to pace the floor again; but in five minutes she had run to
the door once more. This time she wore a heavy coat of Bertram's which
she caught up as she passed the hall-rack.

Out on to the broad top step Billy hurried, and peered down the street.
As far as she could see not a person was in sight. Across the street in
the Public Garden the wind stirred the gray tree-branches and set them
to casting weird shadows on the bare, frozen ground. A warning something
behind her sent Billy scurrying into the house just in time to prevent
the heavy door's closing and shutting her out, keyless, in the cold.

Half-past eleven came, and again Billy ran to the door. This time she
put the floor-mat against the casing so that the door could not close.
Once more she peered wildly up and down the street, and across into the
deserted, wind-swept Garden.

There was only terror now in Billy's face. The anger was all gone. In
Billy's mind there was not a shadow of doubt--something had happened to
Bertram.

Bertram was ill--hurt--dead! And he was so good, so kind, so noble; such
a dear, dear husband! If only she could see him once. If only she could
ask his forgiveness for those wicked, unkind, accusing thoughts. If only
she could tell him again that she did love him. If only--

Far down the street a step rang sharply on the frosty air. A masculine
figure was hurrying toward the house. Retreating well into the shadow
of the doorway, Billy watched it, her heart pounding against her side
in great suffocating throbs. Nearer and nearer strode the approaching
figure until Billy had almost sprung to meet it with a glad cry--almost,
but not quite; for the figure neither turned nor paused, but marched
straight on--and Billy saw then, under the arc light, a brown-bearded
man who was not Bertram at all.

Three times during the next few minutes did the waiting little bride
on the doorstep watch with palpitating yearning a shadowy form appear,
approach--and pass by. At the third heart-breaking disappointment, Billy
wrung her hands helplessly.

“I don't see how there can be--so many--utterly _useless_ people in the
world!” she choked. Then, thoroughly chilled and sick at heart, she went
into the house and closed the door.

Once again, back and forth, back and forth, Billy took up her weary
vigil. She still wore the heavy coat. She had forgotten to take it off.
Her face was pitifully white and drawn. Her eyes were wild. One of her
hands was nervously caressing the rough sleeve of the coat as it hung
from her shoulder.


One--two--three--

Billy gave a sharp cry and ran into the hall.

Yes, it was twelve o'clock. And now, always, all the rest of the
dreary, useless hours that that clock would tick away through an endless
existence, she would have to live--without Bertram. If only she could
see him once more! But she could not. He was dead. He must be dead, now.
Here it was twelve o'clock, and--

There came a quick step, the click of a key in the lock, then the door
swung back and Bertram, big, strong, and merry-eyed, stood before her.

“Well, well, hullo,” he called jovially. “Why, Billy, what's the
matter?” he broke off, in quite a different tone of voice.

And then a curious thing happened. Billy, who, a minute before, had been
seeing only a dear, noble, adorable, _lost_ Bertram, saw now suddenly
only the man that had stayed _happily_ till midnight with two friends,
while she--she--

“Matter! Matter!” exclaimed Billy sharply, then. “Is this what you call
staying to dinner, Bertram Henshaw?”

Bertram stared. A slow red stole to his forehead. It was his first
experience of coming home to meet angry eyes that questioned his
behavior--and he did not like it. He had been, perhaps, a little
conscience-smitten when he saw how late he had stayed; and he had
intended to say he was sorry, of course. But to be thus sharply
called to account for a perfectly innocent good time with a couple of
friends--! To come home and find Billy making a ridiculous scene like
this--! He--he would not stand for it! He--

Bertram's lips snapped open. The angry retort was almost spoken when
something in the piteously quivering chin and white, drawn face opposite
stopped it just in time.

“Why, Billy--darling!” he murmured instead.

It was Billy's turn to change. All the anger melted away before the
dismayed tenderness in those dear eyes and the grieved hurt in that dear
voice.

“Well, you--you--I--” Billy began to cry.

It was all right then, of course, for the next minute she was crying on
Bertram's big, broad shoulder; and in the midst of broken words, kisses,
gentle pats, and inarticulate croonings, the Big, Bad Quarrel, that had
been all ready to materialize, faded quite away into nothingness.

“I didn't have such an awfully good time, anyhow,” avowed Bertram, when
speech became rational. “I'd rather have been home with you.”

“Nonsense!” blinked Billy, valiantly. “Of course you had a good time;
and it was perfectly right you should have it, too! And I--I hope you'll
have it again.”

“I sha'n't,” emphasized Bertram, promptly, “--not and leave you!”

Billy regarded him with adoring eyes.

“I'll tell you; we'll have 'em come here,” she proposed gayly.

“Sure we will,” agreed Bertram.

“Yes; sure we will,” echoed Billy, with a contented sigh. Then, a little
breathlessly, she added: “Anyhow, I'll know--where you are. I won't
think you're--dead!”

“You--blessed--little-goose!” scolded Bertram, punctuating each word
with a kiss.

Billy drew a long sigh.

“If this is a quarrel I'm going to have them often,” she announced
placidly.

“Billy!” The young husband was plainly aghast.

“Well, I am--because I like the making-up,” dimpled Billy, with a
mischievous twinkle as she broke from his clasp and skipped ahead up the
stairway.




CHAPTER VIII. BILLY CULTIVATES A “COMFORTABLE INDIFFERENCE”


The next morning, under the uncompromising challenge of a bright sun,
Billy began to be uneasily suspicious that she had been just a bit
unreasonable and exacting the night before. To make matters worse she
chanced to run across a newspaper criticism of a new book bearing the
ominous title: “When the Honeymoon Wanes A Talk to Young Wives.”

Such a title, of course, attracted her supersensitive attention at once;
and, with a curiously faint feeling, she picked up the paper and began
to read.

As the most of the criticism was taken up with quotations from the book,
it was such sentences as these that met her startled eyes:

“Perhaps the first test comes when the young wife awakes to the
realization that while her husband loves her very much, he can still
make plans with his old friends which do not include herself.... Then is
when the foolish wife lets her husband see how hurt she is that he can
want to be with any one but herself.... Then is when the husband--used
all his life to independence, perhaps--begins to chafe under these new
bonds that hold him so fast.... No man likes to be held up at the end of
a threatened scene and made to give an account of himself.... Before
a woman has learned to cultivate a comfortable indifference to her
husband's comings and goings, she is apt to be tyrannical and exacting.”

“'Comfortable indifference,' indeed!” stormed Billy to herself. “As if I
ever could be comfortably indifferent to anything Bertram did!”

She dropped the paper; but there were still other quotations from the
book there, she knew; and in a moment she was back at the table reading
them.

“No man, however fondly he loves his wife, likes to feel that she is
everlastingly peering into the recesses of his mind, and weighing his
every act to find out if he does or does not love her to-day as well as
he did yesterday at this time.... Then, when spontaneity is dead, she
is the chief mourner at its funeral.... A few couples never leave the
Garden of Eden. They grow old hand in hand. They are the ones who bear
and forbear; who have learned to adjust themselves to the intimate
relationship of living together.... A certain amount of liberty, both of
action and thought, must be allowed on each side.... The family shut in
upon itself grows so narrow that all interest in the outside world
is lost.... No two people are ever fitted to fill each other's lives
entirely. They ought not to try to do it. If they do try, the process is
belittling to each, and the result, if it is successful, is nothing less
than a tragedy; for it could not mean the highest ideals, nor the truest
devotion.... Brushing up against other interests and other personalities
is good for both husband and wife. Then to each other they bring the
best of what they have found, and each to the other continues to be new
and interesting.... The young wife, however, is apt to be jealous of
everything that turns her husband's attention for one moment away from
herself. She is jealous of his thoughts, his words, his friends, even
his business.... But the wife who has learned to be the clinging vine
when her husband wishes her to cling, and to be the sturdy oak when
clinging vines would be tiresome, has solved a tremendous problem.”

At this point Billy dropped the paper. She flung it down, indeed, a bit
angrily. There were still a few more words in the criticism, mostly the
critic's own opinion of the book; but Billy did not care for this. She
had read quite enough--too much, in fact. All that sort of talk might
be very well, even necessary, perhaps (she told herself), for ordinary
husbands and wives! but for her and Bertram--

Then vividly before her rose those initial quoted words:

“Perhaps the first test comes when the young wife awakes to the
realization that while her husband loves her very much, he can still
make plans with his old friends which do not include herself.”

Billy frowned, and put her finger to her lips. Was that then, last
night, a “test”? Had she been “tyrannical and exacting”? Was she
“everlastingly peering into the recesses” of Bertram's mind and
“weighing his every act”? Was Bertram already beginning to “chafe” under
these new bonds that held him?

No, no, never that! She could not believe that. But what if he should
sometime begin to chafe? What if they two should, in days to come,
degenerate into just the ordinary, everyday married folk, whom she saw
about her everywhere, and for whom just such horrid books as this must
be written? It was unbelievable, unthinkable. And yet, that man had
said--

With a despairing sigh Billy picked up the paper once more and read
carefully every word again. When she had finished she stood soberly
thoughtful, her eyes out of the window.

After all, it was nothing but the same old story. She was exacting.
She did want her husband's every thought. She _gloried_ in peering into
every last recess of his mind if she had half a chance. She was jealous
of his work. She had almost hated his painting--at times. She had held
him up with a threatened scene only the night before and demanded that
he should give an account of himself. She had, very likely, been the
clinging vine when she should have been the sturdy oak.

Very well, then. (Billy lifted her head and threw back her shoulders.)
He should have no further cause for complaint. She would be an oak. She
would cultivate that comfortable indifference to his comings and goings.
She would brush up against other interests and personalities so as to
be “new” and “interesting” to her husband. She would not be tyrannical,
exacting, or jealous. She would not threaten scenes, nor peer into
recesses. Whatever happened, she would not let Bertram begin to chafe
against those bonds!

Having arrived at this heroic and (to her) eminently satisfactory state
of mind, Billy turned from the window and fell to work on a piece of
manuscript music.

“'Brush up against other interests,'” she admonished herself sternly, as
she reached for her pen.

Theoretically it was beautiful; but practically--

Billy began at once to be that oak. Not an hour after she had first seen
the fateful notice of “When the Honeymoon Wanes,” Bertram's ring sounded
at the door down-stairs.

Bertram always let himself in with his latchkey; but, from the first
of Billy's being there, he had given a peculiar ring at the bell which
would bring his wife flying to welcome him if she were anywhere in the
house. To-day, when the bell sounded, Billy sprang as usual to her feet,
with a joyous “There's Bertram!” But the next moment she fell back.

“Tut, tut, Billy Neilson Henshaw! Learn to cultivate a comfortable
indifference to your husband's comings and goings,” she whispered
fiercely. Then she sat down and fell to work again.

A moment later she heard her husband's voice talking to some one--Pete,
she surmised. “Here? You say she's here?” Then she heard Bertram's quick
step on the stairs. The next minute, very quietly, he came to her door.

“Ho!” he ejaculated gayly, as she rose to receive his kiss. “I thought
I'd find you asleep, when you didn't hear my ring.”

Billy reddened a little.

“Oh, no, I wasn't asleep.”

“But you didn't hear--” Bertram stopped abruptly, an odd look in his
eyes. “Maybe you did hear it, though,” he corrected.

Billy colored more confusedly. The fact that she looked so distressed
did not tend to clear Bertram's face.

“Why, of course, Billy, I didn't mean to insist on your coming to meet
me,” he began a little stiffly; but Billy interrupted him.

“Why, Bertram, I just love to go to meet you,” she maintained
indignantly. Then, remembering just in time, she amended: “That is,
I did love to meet you, until--” With a sudden realization that she
certainly had not helped matters any, she came to an embarrassed pause.

A puzzled frown showed on Bertram's face.

“You did love to meet me until--” he repeated after her; then his face
changed. “Billy, you aren't--you _can't_ be laying up last night against
me!” he reproached her a little irritably.

“Last night? Why, of course not,” retorted Billy, in a panic at the
bare mention of the “test” which--according to “When the Honeymoon
Wanes”--was at the root of all her misery. Already she thought she
detected in Bertram's voice signs that he was beginning to chafe against
those “bonds.” “It is a matter of--of the utmost indifference to me what
time you come home at night, my dear,” she finished airily, as she sat
down to her work again.

Bertram stared; then he frowned, turned on his heel and left the room.
Bertram, who knew nothing of the “Talk to Young Wives” in the newspaper
at Billy's feet, was surprised, puzzled, and just a bit angry.

Billy, left alone, jabbed her pen with such force against her paper that
the note she was making became an unsightly blot.

“Well, if this is what that man calls being 'comfortably indifferent,'
I'd hate to try the _un_comfortable kind,” she muttered with emphasis.




CHAPTER IX. THE DINNER BILLY TRIED TO GET


Notwithstanding what Billy was disposed to regard as the non-success
of her first attempt to profit by the “Talk to Young Wives;” she still
frantically tried to avert the waning of her honeymoon. Assiduously she
cultivated the prescribed “indifference,” and with at least apparent
enthusiasm she sought the much-to-be-desired “outside interests.” That
is, she did all this when she thought of it when something reminded her
of the sword of destruction hanging over her happiness. At other times,
when she was just being happy without question, she was her old self
impulsive, affectionate, and altogether adorable.

Naturally, under these circumstances, her conduct was somewhat erratic.
For three days, perhaps, she would fly to the door at her husband's
ring, and hang upon his every movement. Then, for the next three,
she would be a veritable will-o'-the-wisp for elusiveness, caring,
apparently, not one whit whether her husband came or went until poor
Bertram, at his wit's end, scourged himself with a merciless catechism
as to what he had done to vex her. Then, perhaps, just when he had
nerved himself almost to the point of asking her what was the trouble,
there would come another change, bringing back to him the old Billy,
joyous, winsome, and devoted, plainly caring nothing for anybody or
anything but himself. Scarcely, however, would he become sure that it
was his Billy back again before she was off once more, quite beyond his
reach, singing with Arkwright and Alice Greggory, playing with Tommy
Dunn, plunging into some club or church work--anything but being with
him.

That all this was puzzling and disquieting to Bertram, Billy not once
suspected. Billy, so far as she was concerned, was but cultivating a
comfortable indifference, brushing up against outside interests, and
being an oak.

December passed, and January came, bringing Miss Marguerite Winthrop to
her Boston home. Bertram's arm was “as good as ever” now, according to
its owner; and the sittings for the new portrait began at once. This
left Billy even more to her own devices, for Bertram entered into his
new work with an enthusiasm born of a glad relief from forced idleness,
and a consuming eagerness to prove that even though he had failed the
first time, he could paint a portrait of Marguerite Winthrop that would
be a credit to himself, a conclusive retort to his critics, and a source
of pride to his once mortified friends. With his whole heart, therefore,
he threw himself into the work before him, staying sometimes well into
the afternoon on the days Miss Winthrop could find time between her
social engagements to give him a sitting.

It was on such a day, toward the middle of the month, that Billy was
called to the telephone at half-past twelve o'clock to speak to her
husband.

“Billy, dear,” began Bertram at once, “if you don't mind I'm staying
to luncheon at Miss Winthrop's kind request. We've changed the
pose--neither of us was satisfied, you know--but we haven't quite
settled on the new one. Miss Winthrop has two whole hours this
afternoon that she can give me if I'll stay; and, of course, under the
circumstances, I want to do it.”

“Of course,” echoed Billy. Billy's voice was indomitably cheerful.

“Thank you, dear. I knew you'd understand,” sighed Bertram, contentedly.
“You see, really, two whole hours, so--it's a chance I can't afford to
lose.”

“Of course you can't,” echoed Billy, again.

“All right then. Good-by till to-night,” called the man.

“Good-by,” answered Billy, still cheerfully. As she turned away,
however, she tossed her head. “A new pose, indeed!” she muttered, with
some asperity. “Just as if there could be a _new_ pose after all those
she tried last year!”

Immediately after luncheon Pete and Eliza started for South Boston to
pay a visit to Eliza's mother, and it was soon after they left the house
that Bertram called his wife up again.

“Say, dearie, I forgot to tell you,” he began, “but I met an old friend
in the subway this morning, and I--well, I remembered what you said
about bringing 'em home to dinner next time, so I asked him for
to-night. Do you mind? It's--”

“Mind? Of course not! I'm glad you did,” plunged in Billy, with feverish
eagerness. (Even now, just the bare mention of anything connected with
that awful “test” night was enough to set Billy's nerves to tingling.)
“I want you to always bring them home, Bertram.”

“All right, dear. We'll be there at six o'clock then. It's--it's
Calderwell, this time. You remember Calderwell, of course.”

“Not--_Hugh_ Calderwell?” Billy's question was a little faint.

“Sure!” Bertram laughed oddly, and lowered his voice. “I suspect
_once_ I wouldn't have brought him home to you. I was too jealous. But
now--well, now maybe I want him to see what he's lost.”

“_Bertram!_”

But Bertram only laughed mischievously, and called a gay “Good-by till
to-night, then!”

Billy, at her end of the wires, hung up the receiver and backed against
the wall a little palpitatingly.

Calderwell! To dinner--Calderwell! Did she remember Calderwell? Did she,
indeed! As if one could easily forget the man that, for a year or two,
had proposed marriage as regularly (and almost as lightly!) as he had
torn a monthly leaf from his calendar! Besides, was it not he, too, who
had said that Bertram would never love any girl, _really_; that it would
be only the tilt of her chin or the turn of her head that he loved--to
paint? And now he was coming to dinner--and with Bertram.

Very well, he should see! He should see that Bertram _did_ love her;
_her_--not the tilt of her chin nor the turn of her head. He should
see how happy they were, what a good wife she made, and how devoted and
_satisfied_ Bertram was in his home. He should see! And forthwith Billy
picked up her skirts and tripped up-stairs to select her very prettiest
house-gown to do honor to the occasion. Up-stairs, however, one thing
and another delayed her, so that it was four o'clock when she turned her
attention to her toilet; and it was while she was hesitating whether to
be stately and impressive in royally sumptuous blue velvet and ermine,
or cozy and tantalizingly homy{sic} in bronze-gold crêpe de Chine and
swan's-down, that the telephone bell rang again.

Eliza and Pete had not yet returned; so, as before, Billy answered it.
This time Eliza's shaking voice came to her.

“Is that you, ma'am?”

“Why, yes, Eliza?”

“Yes'm, it's me, ma'am. It's about Uncle Pete. He's give us a turn
that's 'most scared us out of our wits.”

“Pete! You mean he's sick?”

“Yes, ma'am, he was. That is, he is, too--only he's better, now, thank
goodness,” panted Eliza. “But he ain't hisself yet. He's that white and
shaky! Would you--could you--that is, would you mind if we didn't come
back till into the evenin', maybe?”

“Why, of course not,” cried Pete's mistress, quickly. “Don't come a
minute before he's able, Eliza. Don't come until to-morrow.”

Eliza gave a trembling little laugh.

“Thank you, ma'am; but there wouldn't be no keepin' of Uncle Pete here
till then. If he could take five steps alone he'd start now. But he
can't. He says he'll be all right pretty quick, though. He's had 'em
before--these spells--but never quite so bad as this, I guess; an' he's
worryin' somethin' turrible 'cause he can't start for home right away.”

“Nonsense!” cut in Mrs. Bertram Henshaw.

“Yes'm. I knew you'd feel that way,” stammered Eliza, gratefully. “You
see, I couldn't leave him to come alone, and besides, anyhow, I'd have
to stay, for mother ain't no more use than a wet dish-rag at such times,
she's that scared herself. And she ain't very well, too. So if--if you
_could_ get along--”

“Of course we can! And tell Pete not to worry one bit. I'm so sorry he's
sick!”

“Thank you, ma'am. Then we'll be there some time this evenin',” sighed
Eliza.

From the telephone Billy turned away with a troubled face.

“Pete _is_ ill,” she was saying to herself. “I don't like the looks of
it; and he's so faithful he'd come if--” With a little cry Billy
stopped short. Then, tremblingly, she sank into the nearest chair.
“Calderwell--and he's coming to _dinner!_” she moaned.

For two benumbed minutes Billy sat staring at nothing. Then she ran to
the telephone and called the Annex.

Aunt Hannah answered.

“Aunt Hannah, for heaven's sake, if you love me,” pleaded Billy, “send
Rosa down instanter! Pete is sick over to South Boston, and Eliza is
with him; and Bertram is bringing Hugh Calderwell home to dinner. _Can_
you spare Rosa?”

“Oh, my grief and conscience, Billy! Of course I can--I mean I
could--but Rosa isn't here, dear child! It's her day out, you know.”

“O dear, of course it is! I might have known, if I'd thought; but Pete
and Eliza have spoiled me. They never take days out at meal time--both
together, I mean--until to-night.”

“But, my dear child, what will you do?”

“I don't know. I've got to think. I _must_ do something!”

“Of course you must! I'd come over myself if it wasn't for my cold.”

“As if I'd let you!”

“There isn't anybody here, only Tommy. Even Alice is gone. Oh, Billy,
Billy, this only goes to prove what I've always said, that _no_ woman
_ought_ to be a wife until she's an efficient housekeeper; and--”

“Yes, yes, Aunt Hannah, I know,” moaned Billy, frenziedly. “But I am a
wife, and I'm not an efficient housekeeper; and Hugh Calderwell won't
wait for me to learn. He's coming to-night. _To-night!_ And I've got to
do something. Never mind. I'll fix it some way. Good-by!”

“But, Billy, Billy! Oh, my grief and conscience,” fluttered Aunt
Hannah's voice across the wires as Billy snapped the receiver into
place.

For the second time that day Billy backed palpitatingly against the
wall. Her eyes sought the clock fearfully.

Fifteen minutes past four. She had an hour and three quarters. She
could, of course, telephone Bertram to dine Calderwell at a club or some
hotel. But to do this now, the very first time, when it had been her
own suggestion that he “bring them home”--no, no, she could not do that!
Anything but that! Besides, very likely she could not reach Bertram,
anyway. Doubtless he had left the Winthrops' by this time.

There was Marie. She could telephone Marie. But Marie could not very
well come just now, she knew; and then, too, there was Cyril to be taken
into consideration. How Cyril would gibe at the wife who had to call in
all the neighbors just because her husband was bringing home a friend to
dinner! How he would--Well, he shouldn't! He should not have the chance.
So, there!

With a jerk Mrs. Bertram Henshaw pulled herself away from the wall and
stood erect. Her eyes snapped, and the very poise of her chin spelled
determination.

Very well, she would show them. Was not Bertram bringing this man home
because he was proud of her? Mighty proud he would be if she had to call
in half of Boston to get his dinner for him! Nonsense! She would get
it herself. Was not this the time, if ever, to be an oak? A vine,
doubtless, would lean and cling and telephone, and whine “I can't!” But
not an oak. An oak would hold up its head and say “I can!” An oak would
go ahead and get that dinner. She would be an oak. She would get that
dinner.

What if she didn't know how to cook bread and cake and pies and
things? One did not have to cook bread and cake and pies just to get
a dinner--meat and potatoes and vegetables! Besides, she _could_ make
peach fritters. She knew she could. She would show them!

And with actually a bit of song on her lips, Billy skipped up-stairs
for her ruffled apron and dust-cap--two necessary accompaniments to this
dinner-getting, in her opinion.

Billy found the apron and dust-cap with no difficulty; but it took fully
ten of her precious minutes to unearth from its obscure hiding-place the
blue-and-gold “Bride's Helper” cookbook, one of Aunt Hannah's wedding
gifts.

On the way to the kitchen, Billy planned her dinner. As was natural,
perhaps, she chose the things she herself would like to eat.

“I won't attempt anything very elaborate,” she said to herself. “It
would be wiser to have something simple, like chicken pie, perhaps. I
love chicken pie! And I'll have oyster stew first--that is, after the
grapefruit. Just oysters boiled in milk must be easier than soup to
make. I'll begin with grapefruit with a cherry in it, like Pete fixes
it. Those don't have to be cooked, anyhow. I'll have fish--Bertram loves
the fish course. Let me see, halibut, I guess, with egg sauce. I won't
have any roast; nothing but the chicken pie. And I'll have squash and
onions. I can have a salad, easy--just lettuce and stuff. That doesn't
have to be cooked. Oh, and the peach fritters, if I get time to make
them. For dessert--well, maybe I can find a new pie or pudding in the
cookbook. I want to use that cookbook for something, after hunting all
this time for it!”

In the kitchen Billy found exquisite neatness, and silence. The first
brought an approving light to her eyes; but the second, for some
unapparent reason, filled her heart with vague misgiving. This feeling,
however, Billy resolutely cast from her as she crossed the room, dropped
her book on to the table, and turned toward the shining black stove.

There was an excellent fire. Glowing points of light showed that only
a good draft was needed to make the whole mass of coal red-hot. Billy,
however, did not know this. Her experience of fires was confined to
burning wood in open grates--and wood in open grates had to be poked to
make it red and glowing. With confident alacrity now, therefore, Billy
caught up the poker, thrust it into the mass of coals and gave them a
fine stirring up. Then she set back the lid of the stove and went to
hunt up the ingredients for her dinner.

By the time Billy had searched five minutes and found no chicken, no
oysters, and no halibut, it occurred to her that her larder was not,
after all, an open market, and that one's provisions must be especially
ordered to fit one's needs. As to ordering them now--Billy glanced at
the clock and shook her head.

“It's almost five, already, and they'd never get here in time,” she
sighed regretfully. “I'll have to have something else.”

Billy looked now, not for what she wanted, but for what she could find.
And she found: some cold roast lamb, at which she turned up her nose; an
uncooked beefsteak, which she appropriated doubtfully; a raw turnip and
a head of lettuce, which she hailed with glee; and some beets, potatoes,
onions, and grapefruit, from all of which she took a generous supply.
Thus laden she went back to the kitchen.

Spread upon the table they made a brave show.

“Oh, well, I'll have quite a dinner, after all,” she triumphed, cocking
her head happily. “And now for the dessert,” she finished, pouncing on
the cookbook.

It was while she was turning the leaves to find the pies and puddings
that she ran across the vegetables and found the word “beets” staring
her in the face. Mechanically she read the line below.

“Winter beets will require three hours to cook. Use hot water.”

Billy's startled eyes sought the clock.

Three hours--and it was five, now!

Frenziedly, then, she ran her finger down the page.

“Onions, one and one-half hours. Use hot water. Turnips require a long
time, but if cut thin they will cook in an hour and a quarter.”

“An hour and a quarter, indeed!” she moaned.

“Isn't there anything anywhere that doesn't take forever to cook?”

“Early peas--... green corn--... summer squash--...” mumbled Billy's dry
lips. “But what do folks eat in January--_January_?”

It was the apparently inoffensive sentence, “New potatoes will boil in
thirty minutes,” that brought fresh terror to Billy's soul, and set her
to fluttering the cookbook leaves with renewed haste. If it took _new_
potatoes thirty minutes to cook, how long did it take old ones? In vain
she searched for the answer. There were plenty of potatoes. They were
mashed, whipped, scalloped, creamed, fried, and broiled; they were made
into puffs, croquettes, potato border, and potato snow. For many of
these they were boiled first--“until tender,” one rule said.

“But that doesn't tell me how long it takes to get 'em tender,” fumed
Billy, despairingly. “I suppose they think anybody ought to know
that--but I don't!” Suddenly her eyes fell once more on the instructions
for boiling turnips, and her face cleared. “If it helps to cut turnips
thin, why not potatoes?” she cried. “I _can_ do that, anyhow; and I
will,” she finished, with a sigh of relief, as she caught up half a
dozen potatoes and hurried into the pantry for a knife. A few minutes
later, the potatoes, peeled, and cut almost to wafer thinness, were
dumped into a basin of cold water.

“There! now I guess you'll cook,” nodded Billy to the dish in her hand
as she hurried to the stove.

Chilled by an ominous unresponsiveness, Billy lifted the stove lid and
peered inside. Only a mass of black and graying coals greeted her. The
fire was out.

“To think that even you had to go back on me like this!” upbraided
Billy, eyeing the dismal mass with reproachful gaze.

This disaster, however, as Billy knew, was not so great as it seemed,
for there was still the gas stove. In the old days, under Dong Ling's
rule, there had been no gas stove. Dong Ling disapproved of “devil
stoves” that had “no coalee, no woodee, but burned like hellee.” Eliza,
however, did approve of them; and not long after her arrival, a fine one
had been put in for her use. So now Billy soon had her potatoes with a
brisk blaze under them.

In frantic earnest, then, Billy went to work. Brushing the discarded
onions, turnip, and beets into a pail under the table, she was still
confronted with the beefsteak, lettuce, and grapefruit. All but the
beefsteak she pushed to one side with gentle pats.

“You're all right,” she nodded to them. “I can use you. You don't have
to be cooked, bless your hearts! But _you_--!” Billy scowled at
the beefsteak and ran her finger down the index of the “Bride's
Helper”--Billy knew how to handle that book now.

“No, you don't--not for me!” she muttered, after a minute, shaking her
finger at the tenderloin on the table. “I haven't got any 'hot coals,'
and I thought a 'gridiron' was where they played football; though it
seems it's some sort of a dish to cook you in, here--but I shouldn't
know it from a teaspoon, probably, if I should see it. No, sir! It's
back to the refrigerator for you, and a nice cold sensible roast leg of
lamb for me, that doesn't have to be cooked. Understand? _Cooked_,” she
finished, as she carried the beefsteak away and took possession of the
hitherto despised cold lamb.

Once more Billy made a mad search through cupboards and shelves. This
time she bore back in triumph a can of corn, another of tomatoes, and
a glass jar of preserved peaches. In the kitchen a cheery bubbling from
the potatoes on the stove greeted her. Billy's spirits rose with the
steam.

“There, Spunkie,” she said gayly to the cat, who had just uncurled from
a nap behind the stove. “Tell me I can't get up a dinner! And maybe
we'll have the peach fritters, too,” she chirped. “I've got the
peach-part, anyway.”

But Billy did not have the peach fritters, after all. She got out the
sugar and the flour, to be sure, and she made a great ado looking up the
rule; but a hurried glance at the clock sent her into the dining-room to
set the table, and all thought of the peach fritters was given up.




CHAPTER X. THE DINNER BILLY GOT


At five minutes of six Bertram and Calderwell came. Bertram gave his
peculiar ring and let himself in with his latchkey; but Billy did not
meet him in the hall, nor in the drawing-room. Excusing himself, Bertram
hurried up-stairs. Billy was not in her room, nor anywhere on that
floor. She was not in William's room. Coming down-stairs to the hall
again, Bertram confronted William, who had just come in.

“Where's Billy?” demanded the young husband, with just a touch of
irritation, as if he suspected William of having Billy in his pocket.

William stared slightly.

“Why, I don't know. Isn't she here?”

“I'll ask Pete,” frowned Bertram.

In the dining-room Bertram found no one, though the table was prettily
set, and showed half a grapefruit at each place. In the kitchen--in the
kitchen Bertram found a din of rattling tin, an odor of burned food--, a
confusion of scattered pots and pans, a frightened cat who peered at him
from under a littered stove, and a flushed, disheveled young woman in a
blue dust-cap and ruffled apron, whom he finally recognized as his wife.

“Why, Billy!” he gasped.

Billy, who was struggling with something at the sink, turned sharply.

“Bertram Henshaw,” she panted, “I used to think you were wonderful
because you could paint a picture. I even used to think I was a little
wonderful because I could write a song. Well, I don't any more! But I'll
tell you who _is_ wonderful. It's Eliza and Rosa, and all the rest of
those women who can get a meal on to the table all at once, so it's fit
to eat!”

“Why, Billy!” gasped Bertram again, falling back to the door he had
closed behind him. “What in the world does this mean?”

“Mean? It means I'm getting dinner,” choked Billy. “Can't you see?”

“But--Pete! Eliza!”

“They're sick--I mean he's sick; and I said I'd do it. I'd be an oak.
But how did I know there wasn't anything in the house except stuff that
took hours to cook--only potatoes? And how did I know that _they_ cooked
in no time, and then got all smushy and wet staying in the water? And
how did I know that everything else would stick on and burn on till
you'd used every dish there was in the house to cook 'em in?”

“Why, Billy!” gasped Bertram, for the third time. And then, because
he had been married only six months instead of six years, he made the
mistake of trying to argue with a woman whose nerves were already at the
snapping point. “But, dear, it was so foolish of you to do all this! Why
didn't you telephone? Why didn't you get somebody?”

Like an irate little tigress, Billy turned at bay.

“Bertram Henshaw,” she flamed angrily, “if you don't go up-stairs and
tend to that man up there, I shall _scream_. Now go! I'll be up when I
can.”

And Bertram went.

It was not so very long, after all, before Billy came in to greet her
guest. She was not stately and imposing in royally sumptuous blue velvet
and ermine; nor yet was she cozy and homy in bronze-gold crêpe de
Chine and swan's-down. She was just herself in a pretty little morning
house gown of blue gingham. She was minus the dust-cap and the ruffled
apron, but she had a dab of flour on the left cheek, and a smutch of
crock on her forehead. She had, too, a cut finger on her right hand,
and a burned thumb on her left. But she was Billy--and being Billy,
she advanced with a bright smile and held out a cordial hand--not even
wincing when the cut finger came under Calderwell's hearty clasp.

“I'm glad to see you,” she welcomed him. “You'll excuse my not appearing
sooner, I'm sure, for--didn't Bertram tell you?--I'm playing Bridget
to-night. But dinner is ready now, and we'll go down, please,” she
smiled, as she laid a light hand on her guest's arm.

Behind her, Bertram, remembering the scene in the kitchen, stared in
sheer amazement. Bertram, it might be mentioned again, had been married
six months, not six years.

What Billy had intended to serve for a “simple dinner” that night was:
grapefruit with cherries, oyster stew, boiled halibut with egg sauce,
chicken pie, squash, onions, and potatoes, peach fritters, a “lettuce
and stuff” salad, and some new pie or pudding. What she did serve was:
grapefruit (without the cherries), cold roast lamb, potatoes (a mush of
sogginess), tomatoes (canned, and slightly burned), corn (canned, and
very much burned), lettuce (plain); and for dessert, preserved peaches
and cake (the latter rather dry and stale). Such was Billy's dinner.

The grapefruit everybody ate. The cold lamb too, met with a hearty
reception, especially after the potatoes, corn, and tomatoes were
served--and tasted. Outwardly, through it all, Billy was gayety itself.
Inwardly she was burning up with anger and mortification. And because
she was all this, there was, apparently, no limit to her laughter and
sparkling repartee as she talked with Calderwell, her guest--the guest
who, according to her original plans, was to be shown how happy she and
Bertram were, what a good wife she made, and how devoted and _satisfied_
Bertram was in his home.

William, picking at his dinner--as only a hungry man can pick at a
dinner that is uneatable--watched Billy with a puzzled, uneasy frown.
Bertram, choking over the few mouthfuls he ate, marked his wife's
animated face and Calderwell's absorbed attention, and settled into
gloomy silence.

But it could not continue forever. The preserved peaches were eaten at
last, and the stale cake left. (Billy had forgotten the coffee--which
was just as well, perhaps.) Then the four trailed up-stairs to the
drawing-room.

At nine o'clock an anxious Eliza and a remorseful, apologetic Pete
came home and descended to the horror the once orderly kitchen
and dining-room had become. At ten, Calderwell, with very evident
reluctance, tore himself away from Billy's gay badinage, and said good
night. At two minutes past ten, an exhausted, nerve-racked Billy was
trying to cry on the shoulders of both Uncle William and Bertram at
once.

“There, there, child, don't! It went off all right,” patted Uncle
William.

“Billy, darling,” pleaded Bertram, “please don't cry so! As if I'd ever
let you step foot in that kitchen again!”

At this Billy raised a tear-wet face, aflame with indignant
determination.

“As if I'd ever let you keep me _from_ it, Bertram Henshaw, after this!”
 she contested. “I'm not going to do another thing in all my life but
_cook!_ When I think of the stuff we had to eat, after all the time I
took to get it, I'm simply crazy! Do you think I'd run the risk of such
a thing as this ever happening again?”




CHAPTER XI. CALDERWELL DOES SOME QUESTIONING


On the day after his dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Bertram Henshaw, Hugh
Calderwell left Boston and did not return until more than a month had
passed. One of his first acts, when he did come, was to look up Mr. M.
J. Arkwright at the address which Billy had given him.

Calderwell had not seen Arkwright since they parted in Paris some
two years before, after a six-months tramp through Europe together.
Calderwell liked Arkwright then, greatly, and he lost no time now in
renewing the acquaintance.

The address, as given by Billy, proved to be an attractive but modest
apartment hotel near the Conservatory of Music; and Calderwell was
delighted to find Arkwright at home in his comfortable little bachelor
suite.

Arkwright greeted him most cordially.

“Well, well,” he cried, “if it isn't Calderwell! And how's Mont Blanc?
Or is it the Killarney Lakes this time, or maybe the Sphinx that I
should inquire for, eh?”

“Guess again,” laughed Calderwell, throwing off his heavy coat and
settling himself comfortably in the inviting-looking morris chair his
friend pulled forward.

“Sha'n't do it,” retorted Arkwright, with a smile. “I never gamble on
palpable uncertainties, except for a chance throw or two, as I gave
a minute ago. Your movements are altogether too erratic, and too
far-reaching, for ordinary mortals to keep track of.”

“Well, maybe you're right,” grinned Calderwell, appreciatively. “Anyhow,
you would have lost this time, sure thing, for I've been working.”

“Seen the doctor yet?” queried Arkwright, coolly, pushing the cigars
across the table.

“Thanks--for both,” sniffed Calderwell, with a reproachful glance,
helping himself. “Your good judgment in some matters is still
unimpaired, I see,” he observed, tapping the little gilded band which
had told him the cigar was an old favorite. “As to other matters,
however,--you're wrong again, my friend, in your surmise. I am not sick,
and I have been working.”

“So? Well, I'm told they have very good specialists here. Some one
of them ought to hit your case. Still--how long has it been running?”
 Arkwright's face showed only grave concern.

“Oh, come, let up, Arkwright,” snapped Calderwell, striking his match
alight with a vigorous jerk. “I'll admit I haven't ever given any
_special_ indication of an absorbing passion for work. But what can you
expect of a fellow born with a whole dozen silver spoons in his mouth?
And that's what I was, according to Bertram Henshaw. According to him
again, it's a wonder I ever tried to feed myself; and perhaps he's
right--with my mouth already so full.”

“I should say so,” laughed Arkwright.

“Well, be that as it may. I'm going to feed myself, and I'm going to
earn my feed, too. I haven't climbed a mountain or paddled a canoe, for
a year. I've been in Chicago cultivating the acquaintance of John Doe
and Richard Roe.”

“You mean--law?”

“Sure. I studied it here for a while, before that bout of ours a couple
of years ago. Billy drove me away, then.”

“Billy!--er--Mrs. Henshaw?”

“Yes. I thought I told you. She turned down my tenth-dozen proposal so
emphatically that I lost all interest in Boston and took to the tall
timber again. But I've come back. A friend of my father's wrote me to
come on and consider a good opening there was in his law office. I came
on a month ago, and considered. Then I went back to pack up. Now I've
come for good, and here I am. You have my history to date. Now tell me
of yourself. You're looking as fit as a penny from the mint, even though
you have discarded that 'lovely' brown beard. Was that a concession
to--er--_Mary Jane_?”

Arkwright lifted a quick hand of protest.

“'Michael Jeremiah,' please. There is no 'Mary Jane,' now,” he said a
bit stiffly.

The other stared a little. Then he gave a low chuckle.

“'Michael Jeremiah,'” he repeated musingly, eyeing the glowing tip of
his cigar. “And to think how that mysterious 'M. J.' used to tantalize
me! Do you mean,” he added, turning slowly, “that no one calls you 'Mary
Jane' now?”

“Not if they know what is best for them.”

“Oh!” Calderwell noted the smouldering fire in the other's eyes a little
curiously. “Very well. I'll take the hint--Michael Jeremiah.”

“Thanks.” Arkwright relaxed a little. “To tell the truth, I've had quite
enough now--of Mary Jane.”

“Very good. So be it,” nodded the other, still regarding his friend
thoughtfully. “But tell me--what of yourself?”

Arkwright shrugged his shoulders.

“There's nothing to tell. You've seen. I'm here.”

“Humph! Very pretty,” scoffed Calderwell. “Then if _you_ won't tell, I
_will_. I saw Billy a month ago, you see. It seems you've hit the trail
for Grand Opera, as you threatened to that night in Paris; but you
_haven't_ brought up in vaudeville, as you prophesied you would
do--though, for that matter, judging from the plums some of the stars
are picking on the vaudeville stage, nowadays, that isn't to be sneezed
at. But Billy says you've made two or three appearances already on the
sacred boards themselves--one of them a subscription performance--and
that you created no end of a sensation.”

“Nonsense! I'm merely a student at the Opera School here,” scowled
Arkwright.

“Oh, yes, Billy said you were that, but she also said you wouldn't
be, long. That you'd already had one good offer--I'm not speaking of
marriage--and that you were going abroad next summer, and that they were
all insufferably proud of you.”

“Nonsense!” scowled Arkwright, again, coloring like a girl. “That is
only some of--of Mrs. Henshaw's kind flattery.”

Calderwell jerked the cigar from between his lips, and sat suddenly
forward in his chair.

“Arkwright, tell me about them. How are they making it go?”

Arkwright frowned.

“Who? Make what go?” he asked.

“The Henshaws. Is she happy? Is he--on the square?”

Arkwright's face darkened.

“Well, really,” he began; but Calderwell interrupted.

“Oh, come; don't be squeamish. You think I'm butting into what doesn't
concern me; but I'm not. What concerns Billy does concern me. And if he
doesn't make her happy, I'll--I'll kill him.”

In spite of himself Arkwright laughed. The vehemence of the other's
words, and the fierceness with which he puffed at his cigar as he fell
back in his chair were most expressive.

“Well, I don't think you need to load revolvers nor sharpen daggers,
just yet,” he observed grimly.

Calderwell laughed this time, though without much mirth.

“Oh, I'm not in love with Billy, now,” he explained. “Please don't think
I am. I shouldn't see her if I was, of course.”

Arkwright changed his position suddenly, bringing his face into the
shadow. Calderwell talked on without pausing.

“No, I'm not in love with Billy. But Billy's a trump. You know that.”

“I do.” The words were low, but steadily spoken.

“Of course you do! We all do. And we want her happy. But as for her
marrying Bertram--you could have bowled me over with a soap bubble when
I heard she'd done it. Now understand: Bertram is a good fellow, and I
like him. I've known him all his life, and he's all right. Oh, six or
eight years ago, to be sure, he got in with a set of fellows--Bob Seaver
and his clique--that were no good. Went in for Bohemianism, and all that
rot. It wasn't good for Bertram. He's got the confounded temperament
that goes with his talent, I suppose--though why a man can't paint a
picture, or sing a song, and keep his temper and a level head I don't
see!”

“He can,” cut in Arkwright, with curt emphasis.

“Humph! Well, that's what I think. But, about this marriage business.
Bertram admires a pretty face wherever he sees it--_to paint_, and
always has. Not but that he's straight as a string with women--I don't
mean that; but girls are always just so many pictures to be picked up
on his brushes and transferred to his canvases. And as for his settling
down and marrying anybody for keeps, right along--Great Scott! imagine
Bertram Henshaw as a _domestic_ man!”

Arkwright stirred restlessly as he spoke up in quick defense:

“Oh, but he is, I assure you. I--I've seen them in their home
together--many times. I think they are--very happy.” Arkwright spoke
with decision, though still a little diffidently.

Calderwell was silent. He had picked up the little gilt band he had torn
from his cigar and was fingering it musingly.

“Yes; I've seen them--once,” he said, after a minute. “I took dinner
with them when I was on, a month ago.”

“I heard you did.”

At something in Arkwright's voice, Calderwell turned quickly.

“What do you mean? Why do you say it like that?”

Arkwright laughed. The constraint fled from his manner.

“Well, I may as well tell you. You'll hear of it. It's no secret.
Mrs. Henshaw herself tells of it everywhere. It was her friend, Alice
Greggory, who told me of it first, however. It seems the cook was gone,
and the mistress had to get the dinner herself.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“But you should hear Mrs. Henshaw tell the story now, or Bertram.
It seems she knew nothing whatever about cooking, and her trials and
tribulations in getting that dinner on to the table were only one
degree worse than the dinner itself, according to her story. Didn't
you--er--notice anything?”

“Notice anything!” exploded Calderwell. “I noticed that Billy was so
brilliant she fairly radiated sparks; and I noticed that Bertram was so
glum he--he almost radiated thunderclaps. Then I saw that Billy's high
spirits were all assumed to cover a threatened burst of tears, and I
laid it all to him. I thought he'd said something to hurt her; and I
could have punched him. Great Scott! Was _that_ what ailed them?”

“I reckon it was. Alice says that since then Mrs. Henshaw has fairly
haunted the kitchen, begging Eliza to teach her everything, _every
single thing_ she knows!”

Calderwell chuckled.

“If that isn't just like Billy! She never does anything by halves. By
George, but she was game over that dinner! I can see it all now.”

“Alice says she's really learning to cook, in spite of old Pete's
horror, and Eliza's pleadings not to spoil her pretty hands.”

“Then Pete is back all right? What a faithful old soul he is!”

Arkwright frowned slightly.

“Yes, he's faithful, but he isn't all right, by any means. I think he's
a sick man, myself.”

“What makes Billy let him work, then?”

“Let him!” sniffed Arkwright. “I'd like to see you try to stop him! Mrs.
Henshaw begs and pleads with him to stop, but he scouts the idea. Pete
is thoroughly and unalterably convinced that the family would starve to
death if it weren't for him; and Mrs. Henshaw says that she'll admit he
has some grounds for his opinion when one remembers the condition of the
kitchen and dining-room the night she presided over them.”

“Poor Billy!” chuckled Calderwell. “I'd have gone down into the kitchen
myself if I'd suspected what was going on.”

Arkwright raised his eyebrows.

“Perhaps it's well you didn't--if Bertram's picture of what he found
there when he went down is a true one. Mrs. Henshaw acknowledges that
even the cat sought refuge under the stove.”

“As if the veriest worm that crawls ever needed to seek refuge from
Billy!” scoffed Calderwell. “By the way, what's this Annex I hear of?
Bertram mentioned it, but I couldn't get either of them to tell what
it was. Billy wouldn't, and Bertram said he couldn't--not with Billy
shaking her head at him like that. So I had my suspicions. One of
Billy's pet charities?”

“She doesn't call it that.” Arkwright's face and voice softened. “It is
Hillside. She still keeps it open. She calls it the Annex to her home.
She's filled it with a crippled woman, a poor little music teacher, a
lame boy, and Aunt Hannah.”

“But how--extraordinary!”

“She doesn't think so. She says it's just an overflow house for the
extra happiness she can't use.”

There was a moment's silence. Calderwell laid down his cigar, pulled out
his handkerchief, and blew his nose furiously. Then he got to his feet
and walked to the fireplace. After a minute he turned.

“Well, if she isn't the beat 'em!” he spluttered. “And I had the gall to
ask you if Henshaw made her--happy! Overflow house, indeed!”

“The best of it is, the way she does it,” smiled Arkwright. “They're all
the sort of people ordinary charity could never reach; and the only way
she got them there at all was to make each one think that he or she was
absolutely necessary to the rest of them. Even as it is, they all pay a
little something toward the running expenses of the house. They
insisted on that, and Mrs. Henshaw had to let them. I believe her chief
difficulty now is that she has not less than six people whom she wishes
to put into the two extra rooms still unoccupied, and she can't make up
her mind which to take. Her husband says he expects to hear any day of
an Annexette to the Annex.”

“Humph!” grunted Calderwell, as he turned and began to walk up and down
the room. “Bertram is still painting, I suppose.”

“Oh, yes.”

“What's he doing now?”

“Several things. He's up to his eyes in work. As you probably have
heard, he met with a severe accident last summer, and lost the use of
his right arm for many months. I believe they thought at one time he had
lost it forever. But it's all right now, and he has several commissions
for portraits. Alice says he's doing ideal heads again, too.”

“Same old 'Face of a Girl'?”

“I suppose so, though Alice didn't say. Of course his special work just
now is painting the portrait of Miss Marguerite Winthrop. You may have
heard that he tried it last year and--and didn't make quite a success of
it.”

“Yes. My sister Belle told me. She hears from Billy once in a while.
Will it be a go, this time?”

“We'll hope so--for everybody's sake. I imagine no one has seen it
yet--it's not finished; but Alice says--”

Calderwell turned abruptly, a quizzical smile on his face.

“See here, my son,” he interposed, “it strikes me that this Alice is
saying a good deal--to you! Who is she?”

Arkwright gave a light laugh.

“Why, I told you. She is Miss Alice Greggory, Mrs. Henshaw's friend--and
mine. I have known her for years.”

“Hm-m; what is she like?”

“Like? Why, she's like--like herself, of course. You'll have to know
Alice. She's the salt of the earth--Alice is,” smiled Arkwright, rising
to his feet with a remonstrative gesture, as he saw Calderwell pick up
his coat. “What's your hurry?”

“Hm-m,” commented Calderwell again, ignoring the question. “And when,
may I ask, do you intend to appropriate this--er--salt--to--er--ah,
season your own life with, as I might say--eh?”

Arkwright laughed. There was not the slightest trace of embarrassment in
his face.

“Never. _You're_ on the wrong track, this time. Alice and I are good
friends--always have been, and always will be, I hope.”

“Nothing more?”

“Nothing more. I see her frequently. She is musical, and the Henshaws
are good enough to ask us there often together. You will meet her,
doubtless, now, yourself. She is frequently at the Henshaw home.”

“Hm-m.” Calderwell still eyed his host shrewdly. “Then you'll give me a
clear field, eh?”

“Certainly.” Arkwright's eyes met his friend's gaze without swerving.

“All right. However, I suppose you'll tell me, as I did you, once, that
a right of way in such a case doesn't mean a thoroughfare for the party
interested. If my memory serves me, I gave you right of way in Paris to
win the affections of a certain elusive Miss Billy here in Boston, if
you could. But I see you didn't seem to improve your opportunities,” he
finished teasingly.

Arkwright stooped, of a sudden, to pick up a bit of paper from the
floor.

“No,” he said quietly. “I didn't seem to improve my opportunities.” This
time he did not meet Calderwell's eyes.

The good-byes had been said when Calderwell turned abruptly at the door.

“Oh, I say, I suppose you're going to that devil's carnival at Jordan
Hall to-morrow night.”

“Devil's carnival! You don't mean--Cyril Henshaw's piano recital!”

“Sure I do,” grinned Calderwell, unabashed. “And I'll warrant it'll be
a devil's carnival, too. Isn't Mr. Cyril Henshaw going to play his own
music? Oh, I know I'm hopeless, from your standpoint, but I can't help
it. I like mine with some go in it, and a tune that you can find without
hunting for it. And I don't like lost spirits gone mad that wail and
shriek through ten perfectly good minutes, and then die with a gasping
moan whose home is the tombs. However, you're going, I take it.”

“Of course I am,” laughed the other. “You couldn't hire Alice to miss
one shriek of those spirits. Besides, I rather like them myself, you
know.”

“Yes, I suppose you do. You're brought up on it--in your business. But
me for the 'Merry Widow' and even the hoary 'Jingle Bells' every time!
However, I'm going to be there--out of respect to the poor fellow's
family. And, by the way, that's another thing that bowled me
over--Cyril's marriage. Why, Cyril hates women!”

“Not all women--we'll hope,” smiled Arkwright. “Do you know his wife?”

“Not much. I used to see her a little at Billy's. Music teacher, wasn't
she? Then she's the same sort, I suppose.”

“But she isn't,” laughed Arkwright. “Oh, she taught music, but that
was only because of necessity, I take it. She's domestic through and
through, with an overwhelming passion for making puddings and darning
socks, I hear. Alice says she believes Mrs. Cyril knows every dish and
spoon by its Christian name, and that there's never so much as a spool
of thread out of order in the house.”

“But how does Cyril stand it--the trials and tribulations of domestic
life? Bertram used to declare that the whole Strata was aquiver with
fear when Cyril was composing, and I remember him as a perfect bear if
anybody so much as whispered when he was in one of his moods. I never
forgot the night Bertram and I were up in William's room trying to sing
'When Johnnie comes marching home,' to the accompaniment of a banjo
in Bertram's hands, and a guitar in mine. Gorry! it was Hugh that went
marching home that night.”

“Oh, well, from reports I reckon Mrs. Cyril doesn't play either a banjo
or a guitar,” smiled Arkwright. “Alice says she wears rubber heels on
her shoes, and has put hushers on all the chair-legs, and felt-mats
between all the plates and saucers. Anyhow, Cyril is building a new
house, and he looks as if he were in a pretty healthy condition, as
you'll see to-morrow night.”

“Humph! I wish he'd make his music healthy, then,” grumbled Calderwell,
as he opened the door.




CHAPTER XII. FOR BILLY--SOME ADVICE


February brought busy days. The public opening of the Bohemian Ten Club
Exhibition was to take place the sixth of March, with a private view
for invited guests the night before; and it was at this exhibition that
Bertram planned to show his portrait of Marguerite Winthrop. He also, if
possible, wished to enter two or three other canvases, upon which he was
spending all the time he could get.

Bertram felt that he was doing very good work now. The portrait of
Marguerite Winthrop was coming on finely. The spoiled idol of society
had at last found a pose and a costume that suited her, and she was
graciously pleased to give the artist almost as many sittings as he
wanted. The “elusive something” in her face, which had previously been
so baffling, was now already caught and held bewitchingly on his canvas.
He was confident that the portrait would be a success. He was also much
interested in another piece of work which he intended to show called
“The Rose.” The model for this was a beautiful young girl he had found
selling flowers with her father in a street booth at the North End.

On the whole, Bertram was very happy these days. He could not, to
be sure, spend quite so much time with Billy as he wished; but she
understood, of course, as did he, that his work must come first. He knew
that she tried to show him that she understood it. At the same time, he
could not help thinking, occasionally, that Billy did sometimes mind his
necessary absorption in his painting.

To himself Bertram owned that Billy was, in some ways, a puzzle to him.
Her conduct was still erratic at times. One day he would seem to be
everything to her; the next--almost nothing, judging by the ease with
which she relinquished his society and substituted that of some one
else: Arkwright, or Calderwell, for instance.

And that was another thing. Bertram was ashamed to hint even to himself
that he was jealous of either of those men. Surely, after what had
happened, after Billy's emphatic assertion that she had never loved any
one but himself, it would seem not only absurd, but disloyal, that
he should doubt for an instant Billy's entire devotion to him, and
yet--there were times when he wished he _could_ come home and not
always find Alice Greggory, Calderwell, Arkwright, or all three of them
strumming the piano in the drawing-room! At such times, always, though,
if he did feel impatient, he immediately demanded of himself: “Are you,
then, the kind of husband that begrudges your wife young companions of
her own age and tastes to help her while away the hours that you cannot
possibly spend with her yourself?”

This question, and the answer that his better self always gave to it,
were usually sufficient to send him into some florists for a bunch of
violets for Billy, or into a candy shop on a like atoning errand.

As to Billy--Billy, too, was busy these days chief of her concerns
being, perhaps, attention to that honeymoon of hers, to see that it did
not wane. At least, the most of her thoughts, and many of her actions,
centered about that object.

Billy had the book, now--the “Talk to Young Wives.” For a time she had
worked with only the newspaper criticism to guide her; but, coming at
last to the conclusion that if a little was good, more must be better,
she had shyly gone into a bookstore one day and, with a pink blush, had
asked for the book. Since bringing it home she had studied assiduously
(though never if Bertram was near), keeping it well-hidden, when not in
use, in a remote corner of her desk.

There was a good deal in the book that Billy did not like, and there
were some statements that worried her; but yet there was much that she
tried earnestly to follow. She was still striving to be the oak, and
she was still eagerly endeavoring to brush up against those necessary
outside interests. She was so thankful, in this connection, for Alice
Greggory, and for Arkwright and Hugh Calderwell. It was such a help that
she had them! They were not only very pleasant and entertaining outside
interests, but one or another of them was almost always conveniently
within reach.

Then, too, it pleased her to think that she was furthering the pretty
love story between Alice and Mr. Arkwright. And she _was_ furthering it.
She was sure of that. Already she could see how dependent the man was on
Alice, how he looked to her for approbation, and appealed to her on all
occasions, exactly as if there was not a move that he wanted to make
without her presence near him. Billy was very sure, now, of Arkwright.
She only wished she were as much so of Alice. But Alice troubled her.
Not but that Alice was kindness itself to the man, either. It was only
a peculiar something almost like fear, or constraint, that Billy thought
she saw in Alice's eyes, sometimes, when Arkwright made a particularly
intimate appeal. There was Calderwell, too. He, also, worried Billy. She
feared he was going to complicate matters still more by falling in love
with Alice, himself; and this, certainly, Billy did not want at all. As
this phase of the matter presented itself, indeed, Billy determined to
appropriate Calderwell a little more exclusively to herself, when the
four were together, thus leaving Alice for Arkwright. After all, it was
rather entertaining--this playing at Cupid's assistant. If she _could_
not have Bertram all the time, it was fortunate that these outside
interests were so pleasurable.

Most of the mornings Billy spent in the kitchen, despite the
remonstrances of both Pete and Eliza. Almost every meal, now, was graced
with a palatable cake, pudding, or muffin that Billy would proudly claim
as her handiwork. Pete still served at table, and made strenuous efforts
to keep up all his old duties; but he was obviously growing weaker, and
really serious blunders were beginning to be noticeable. Bertram even
hinted once or twice that perhaps it would be just as well to insist on
his going; but to this Billy would not give her consent. Even when one
night his poor old trembling hands spilled half the contents of a soup
plate over a new and costly evening gown of Billy's own, she still
refused to have him dismissed.

“Why, Bertram, I wouldn't do it,” she declared hotly; “and you wouldn't,
either. He's been here more than fifty years. It would break his heart.
He's really too ill to work, and I wish he would go of his own accord,
of course; but I sha'n't ever tell him to go--not if he spills soup on
every dress I've got. I'll buy more--and more, if it's necessary. Bless
his dear old heart! He thinks he's really serving us--and he is, too.”

“Oh, yes, you're right, he _is!_” sighed Bertram, with meaning emphasis,
as he abandoned the argument.

In addition to her “Talk to Young Wives,” Billy found herself
encountering advice and comment on the marriage question from still
other quarters--from her acquaintances (mostly the feminine ones) right
and left. Continually she was hearing such words as these:

“Oh, well, what can you expect, Billy? You're an old married woman,
now.”

“Never mind, you'll find he's like all the rest of the husbands. You
just wait and see!”

“Better begin with a high hand, Billy. Don't let him fool you!”

“Mercy! If I had a husband whose business it was to look at women's
beautiful eyes, peachy cheeks, and luxurious tresses, I should go
crazy! It's hard enough to keep a man's eyes on yourself when his daily
interests are supposed to be just lumps of coal and chunks of ice,
without flinging him into the very jaws of temptation like asking him to
paint a pretty girl's picture!”

In response to all this, of course, Billy could but laugh, and blush,
and toss back some gay reply, with a careless unconcern. But in her
heart she did not like it. Sometimes she told herself that if there were
not any advice or comment from anybody--either book or woman--if there
were not anybody but just Bertram and herself, life would be just one
long honeymoon forever and forever.

Once or twice Billy was tempted to go to Marie with this honeymoon
question; but Marie was very busy these days, and very preoccupied. The
new house that Cyril was building on Corey Hill, not far from the
Annex, was almost finished, and Marie was immersed in the subject of
house-furnishings and interior decoration. She was, too, still more
deeply engrossed in the fashioning of tiny garments of the softest
linen, lace, and woolen; and there was on her face such a look of
beatific wonder and joy that Billy did not like to so much as hint that
there was in the world such a book as “When the Honeymoon Wanes: A Talk
to Young Wives.”

Billy tried valiantly these days not to mind that Bertram's work was so
absorbing. She tried not to mind that his business dealt, not with lumps
of coal and chunks of ice, but with beautiful women like Marguerite
Winthrop who asked him to luncheon, and lovely girls like his model for
“The Rose” who came freely to his studio and spent hours in the beloved
presence, being studied for what Bertram declared was absolutely the
most wonderful poise of head and shoulders that he had ever seen.

Billy tried, also, these days, to so conduct herself that not by any
chance could Calderwell suspect that sometimes she was jealous of
Bertram's art. Not for worlds would she have had Calderwell begin to get
the notion into his head that his old-time prophecy concerning Bertram's
caring only for the turn of a girl's head or the tilt of her chin--to
paint, was being fulfilled. Hence, particularly gay and cheerful was
Billy when Calderwell was near. Nor could it be said that Billy was
really unhappy at any time. It was only that, on occasion, the very
depth of her happiness in Bertram's love frightened her, lest it bring
disaster to herself or Bertram.

Billy still went frequently to the Annex. There were yet two unfilled
rooms in the house. Billy was hesitating which two of six new friends
of hers to choose as occupants; and it was one day early in March, after
she had been talking the matter over with Aunt Hannah, that Aunt Hannah
said:

“Dear me, Billy, if you had your way I believe you'd open another whole
house!”

“Do you know?--that's just what I'm thinking of,” retorted Billy,
gravely. Then she laughed at Aunt Hannah's shocked gesture of protest.
“Oh, well, I don't expect to,” she added. “I haven't lived very long,
but I've lived long enough to know that you can't always do what you
want to.”

“Just as if there were anything _you_ wanted to do that you don't do, my
dear,” reproved Aunt Hannah, mildly.

“Yes, I know.” Billy drew in her breath with a little catch. “I have so
much that is lovely; and that's why I need this house, you know, for the
overflow,” she nodded brightly. Then, with a characteristic change of
subject, she added: “My, but you should have tasted of the popovers I
made for breakfast this morning!”

“I should like to,” smiled Aunt Hannah. “William says you're getting to
be quite a cook.”

“Well, maybe,” conceded Billy, doubtfully. “Oh, I can do some things
all right; but just wait till Pete and Eliza go away again, and Bertram
brings home a friend to dinner. That'll tell the tale. I think now I
could have something besides potato-mush and burned corn--but maybe I
wouldn't, when the time came. If only I could buy everything I needed to
cook with, I'd be all right. But I can't, I find.”

“Can't buy what you need! What do you mean?”

Billy laughed ruefully.

“Well, every other question I ask Eliza, she says: 'Why, I don't know;
you have to use your judgment.' Just as if I had any judgment about how
much salt to use, or what dish to take! Dear me, Aunt Hannah, the man
that will grow judgment and can it as you would a mess of peas, has got
his fortune made!”

“What an absurd child you are, Billy,” laughed Aunt Hannah. “I used to
tell Marie--By the way, how is Marie? Have you seen her lately?”

“Oh, yes, I saw her yesterday,” twinkled Billy. “She had a book of
wall-paper samples spread over the back of a chair, two bunches of
samples of different colored damasks on the table before her, a 'Young
Mother's Guide' propped open in another chair, and a pair of baby's
socks in her lap with a roll each of pink, and white, and blue ribbon.
She spent most of the time, after I had helped her choose the ribbon, in
asking me if I thought she ought to let the baby cry and bother Cyril,
or stop its crying and hurt the baby, because her 'Mother's Guide' says
a certain amount of crying is needed to develop a baby's lungs.”

Aunt Hannah laughed, but she frowned, too.

“The idea! I guess Cyril can stand proper crying--and laughing,
too--from his own child!” she said then, crisply.

“Oh, but Marie is afraid he can't,” smiled Billy. “And that's the
trouble. She says that's the only thing that worries her--Cyril.”

“Nonsense!” ejaculated Aunt Hannah.

“Oh, but it isn't nonsense to Marie,” retorted Billy. “You should see
the preparations she's made and the precautions she's taken. Actually,
when I saw those baby's socks in her lap, I didn't know but she was
going to put rubber heels on them! They've built the new house with
deadening felt in all the walls, and Marie's planned the nursery and
Cyril's den at opposite ends of the house; and she says she shall keep
the baby there _all_ the time--the nursery, I mean, not the den. She
says she's going to teach it to be a quiet baby and hate noise. She says
she thinks she can do it, too.”

“Humph!” sniffed Aunt Hannah, scornfully.

“You should have seen Marie's disgust the other day,” went on Billy, a
bit mischievously. “Her Cousin Jane sent on a rattle she'd made herself,
all soft worsted, with bells inside. It was a dear; but Marie was
horror-stricken. 'My baby have a rattle?' she cried. 'Why, what would
Cyril say? As if he could stand a rattle in the house!' And if she
didn't give that rattle to the janitor's wife that very day, while I was
there!”

“Humph!” sniffed Aunt Hannah again, as Billy rose to go. “Well, I'm
thinking Marie has still some things to learn in this world--and Cyril,
too, for that matter.”

“I wouldn't wonder,” laughed Billy, giving Aunt Hannah a good-by kiss.




CHAPTER XIII. PETE


Bertram Henshaw had no disquieting forebodings this time concerning his
portrait of Marguerite Winthrop when the doors of the Bohemian Ten Club
Exhibition were thrown open to members and invited guests. Just how
great a popular success it was destined to be, he could not know, of
course, though he might have suspected it when he began to receive the
admiring and hearty congratulations of his friends and fellow-artists on
that first evening.

Nor was the Winthrop portrait the only jewel in his crown on that
occasion. His marvelously exquisite “The Rose,” and his smaller ideal
picture, “Expectation,” came in for scarcely less commendation. There
was no doubt now. The originator of the famous “Face of a Girl” had come
into his own again. On all sides this was the verdict, one long-haired
critic of international fame even claiming openly that Henshaw had
not only equaled his former best work, but had gone beyond it, in both
artistry and technique.

It was a brilliant gathering. Society, as usual, in costly evening gowns
and correct swallow-tails rubbed elbows with names famous in the world
of Art and Letters. Everywhere were gay laughter and sparkling repartee.
Even the austere-faced J. G. Winthrop unbent to the extent of grim
smiles in response to the laudatory comments bestowed upon the pictured
image of his idol, his beautiful daughter.

As to the great financier's own opinion of the work, no one heard him
express it except, perhaps, the artist; and all that he got was a grip
of the hand and a “Good! I knew you'd fetch it this time, my boy!” But
that was enough. And, indeed, no one who knew the stern old man needed
to more than look into his face that evening to know of his entire
satisfaction in this portrait soon to be the most recent, and the most
cherished addition to his far-famed art collection.

As to Bertram--Bertram was pleased and happy and gratified, of course,
as was natural; but he was not one whit more so than was Bertram's wife.
Billy fairly radiated happiness and proud joy. She told Bertram, indeed,
that if he did anything to make her any prouder, it would take an Annex
the size of the Boston Opera House to hold her extra happiness.

“Sh-h, Billy! Some one will hear you,” protested Bertram, tragically;
but, in spite of his horrified voice, he did not look displeased.

For the first time Billy met Marguerite Winthrop that evening. At the
outset there was just a bit of shyness and constraint in the young
wife's manner. Billy could not forget her old insane jealousy of this
beautiful girl with the envied name of Marguerite. But it was for only a
moment, and soon she was her natural, charming self.

Miss Winthrop was fascinated, and she made no pretense of hiding it. She
even turned to Bertram at last, and cried:

“Surely, now, Mr. Henshaw, you need never go far for a model! Why don't
you paint your wife?”

Billy colored. Bertram smiled.

“I have,” he said. “I have painted her many times. In fact, I have
painted her so often that she once declared it was only the tilt of her
chin and the turn of her head that I loved--to paint,” he said merrily,
enjoying Billy's pretty confusion, and not realizing that his words
really distressed her. “I have a whole studio full of 'Billys' at home.”

“Oh, have you, really?” questioned Miss Winthrop, eagerly. “Then mayn't
I see them? Mayn't I, please, Mrs. Henshaw? I'd so love to!”

“Why, of course you may,” murmured both the artist and his wife.

“Thank you. Then I'm coming right away. May I? I'm going to Washington
next week, you see. Will you let me come to-morrow at--at half-past
three, then? Will it be quite convenient for you, Mrs. Henshaw?”

“Quite convenient. I shall be glad to see you,” smiled Billy. And
Bertram echoed his wife's cordial permission.

“Thank you. Then I'll be there at half-past three,” nodded Miss
Winthrop, with a smile, as she turned to give place to an admiring
group, who were waiting to pay their respects to the artist and his
wife.

There was, after all, that evening, one fly in Billy's ointment.

It fluttered in at the behest of an old acquaintance--one of the “advice
women,” as Billy termed some of her too interested friends.

“Well, they're lovely, perfectly lovely, of course, Mrs. Henshaw,” said
this lady, coming up to say good-night. “But, all the same, I'm
glad my husband is just a plain lawyer. Look out, my dear, that while
Mr. Henshaw is stealing all those pretty faces for his canvases--just
look out that the fair ladies don't turn around and steal his heart
before you know it. Dear me, but you must be so proud of him!”

“I am,” smiled Billy, serenely; and only the jagged split that rent the
glove on her hand, at that moment, told of the fierce anger behind that
smile.

“As if I couldn't trust Bertram!” raged Billy passionately to herself,
stealing a surreptitious glance at her ruined glove. “And as if there
weren't ever any perfectly happy marriages--even if you don't ever hear
of them, or read of them!”

Bertram was not home to luncheon on the day following the opening night
of the Bohemian Ten Club. A matter of business called him away from the
house early in the morning; but he told his wife that he surely would
be on hand for Miss Winthrop's call at half-past three o'clock that
afternoon.

“Yes, do,” Billy had urged. “I think she's lovely, but you know her so
much better than I do that I want you here. Besides, you needn't think
_I'm_ going to show her all those Billys of yours. I may be vain, but
I'm not quite vain enough for that, sir!”

“Don't worry,” her husband had laughed. “I'll be here.”

As it chanced, however, something occurred an hour before half-past
three o'clock that drove every thought of Miss Winthrop's call from
Billy's head.

For three days, now, Pete had been at the home of his niece in South
Boston. He had been forced, finally, to give up and go away. News from
him the day before had been anything but reassuring, and to-day, Bertram
being gone, Billy had suggested that Eliza serve a simple luncheon and
go immediately afterward to South Boston to see how her uncle was. This
suggestion Eliza had followed, leaving the house at one o'clock.

Shortly after two Calderwell had dropped in to bring Bertram, as he
expressed it, a bunch of bouquets he had gathered at the picture show
the night before. He was still in the drawing-room, chatting with Billy,
when the telephone bell rang.

“If that's Bertram, tell him to come home; he's got company,” laughed
Calderwell, as Billy passed into the hall.

A moment later he heard Billy give a startled cry, followed by a few
broken words at short intervals. Then, before he could surmise what
had happened, she was back in the drawing-room again, her eyes full of
tears.

“It's Pete,” she choked. “Eliza says he can't live but a few minutes.
He wants to see me once more. What shall I do? John's got Peggy out with
Aunt Hannah and Mrs. Greggory. It was so nice to-day I made them go.
But I must get there some way--Pete is calling for me. Uncle William is
going, and I told Eliza where she might reach Bertram; but what shall
_I_ do? How shall I go?”

Calderwell was on his feet at once.

“I'll get a taxi. Don't worry--we'll get there. Poor old soul--of course
he wants to see you! Get on your things. I'll have it here in no time,”
 he finished, hurrying to the telephone.

“Oh, Hugh, I'm so glad I've got _you_ here,” sobbed Billy, stumbling
blindly toward the stairway. “I'll be ready in two minutes.”

And she was; but neither then, nor a little later when she and
Calderwell drove hurriedly away from the house, did Billy once remember
that Miss Marguerite Winthrop was coming to call that afternoon to see
Mrs. Bertram Henshaw and a roomful of Billy pictures.

Pete was still alive when Calderwell left Billy at the door of the
modest little home where Eliza's mother lived.

“Yes, you're in time, ma'am,” sobbed Eliza; “and, oh, I'm so glad you've
come. He's been askin' and askin' for ye.”

From Eliza Billy learned then that Mr. William was there, but not Mr.
Bertram. They had not been able to reach Mr. Bertram, or Mr. Cyril.

Billy never forgot the look of reverent adoration that came into Pete's
eyes as she entered the room where he lay.

“Miss Billy--my Miss Billy! You were so good-to come,” he whispered
faintly.

Billy choked back a sob.

“Of course I'd come, Pete,” she said gently, taking one of the thin,
worn hands into both her soft ones.

It was more than a few minutes that Pete lived. Four o'clock came, and
five, and he was still with them. Often he opened his eyes and smiled.
Sometimes he spoke a low word to William or Billy, or to one of the
weeping women at the foot of the bed. That the presence of his beloved
master and mistress meant much to him was plain to be seen.

“I'm so sorry,” he faltered once, “about that pretty dress--I spoiled,
Miss Billy. But you know--my hands--”

“I know, I know,” soothed Billy; “but don't worry. It wasn't spoiled,
Pete. It's all fixed now.”

“Oh, I'm so glad,” sighed the sick man. After another long interval of
silence he turned to William.

“Them socks--the medium thin ones--you'd oughter be puttin' 'em on soon,
sir, now. They're in the right-hand corner of the bottom drawer--you
know.”

“Yes, Pete; I'll attend to it,” William managed to stammer, after he had
cleared his throat.

Eliza's turn came next.

“Remember about the coffee,” Pete said to her, “--the way Mr. William
likes it. And always eggs, you know, for--for--” His voice trailed into
an indistinct murmur, and his eyelids drooped wearily.

One by one the minutes passed. The doctor came and went: there was
nothing he could do. At half-past five the thin old face became again
alight with consciousness. There was a good-by message for Bertram, and
one for Cyril. Aunt Hannah was remembered, and even little Tommy Dunn.
Then, gradually, a gray shadow crept over the wasted features. The words
came more brokenly. The mind, plainly, was wandering, for old Pete was
young again, and around him were the lads he loved, William, Cyril, and
Bertram. And then, very quietly, soon after the clock struck six, Pete
fell into the beginning of his long sleep.




CHAPTER XIV. WHEN BERTRAM CAME HOME


It was a little after half-past three o'clock that afternoon when
Bertram Henshaw hurried up Beacon Street toward his home. He had been
delayed, and he feared that Miss Winthrop would already have reached the
house. Mindful of what Billy had said that morning, he knew how his wife
would fret if he were not there when the guest arrived. The sight
of what he surmised to be Miss Winthrop's limousine before his door
hastened his steps still more. But as he reached the house, he was
surprised to find Miss Winthrop herself turning away from the door.

“Why, Miss Winthrop,” he cried, “you're not going _now!_ You can't have
been here any--yet!”

“Well, no, I--I haven't,” retorted the lady, with heightened color and a
somewhat peculiar emphasis. “My ring wasn't answered.”

“Wasn't answered!” Bertram reddened angrily. “Why, what can that mean?
Where's the maid? Where's my wife? Mrs. Henshaw must be here! She was
expecting you.”

Bertram, in his annoyed amazement, spoke loudly, vehemently. Hence he
was quite plainly heard by the group of small boys and girls who had
been improving the mild weather for a frolic on the sidewalk, and who
had been attracted to his door a moment before by the shining magnet
of the Winthrop limousine with its resplendently liveried chauffeur. As
Bertram spoke, one of the small girls, Bessie Bailey, stepped forward
and piped up a shrill reply.

“She ain't, Mr. Henshaw! She ain't here. I saw her go away just a little
while ago.”

Bertram turned sharply.

“You saw her go away! What do you mean?”

Small Bessie swelled with importance. Bessie was thirteen, in spite of
her diminutive height. Bessie's mother was dead, and Bessie's caretakers
were gossiping nurses and servants, who frequently left in her way books
that were much too old for Bessie to read--but she read them.

“I mean she ain't here--your wife, Mr. Henshaw. She went away. I saw
her. I guess likely she's eloped, sir.”

“Eloped!”

Bessie swelled still more importantly. To her experienced eyes the
situation contained all the necessary elements for the customary flight
of the heroine in her story-books, as here, now, was the irate, deserted
husband.

“Sure! And 'twas just before you came--quite a while before. A big shiny
black automobile like this drove up--only it wasn't quite such a nice
one--an' Mrs. Henshaw an' a man came out of your house an' got in, an'
drove right away _quick!_ They just ran to get into it, too--didn't
they?” She appealed to her young mates grouped about her.

A chorus of shrill exclamations brought Mr. Bertram Henshaw suddenly
to his senses. By a desperate effort he hid his angry annoyance as
he turned to the manifestly embarrassed young woman who was already
descending the steps.

“My dear Miss Winthrop,” he apologized contritely, “I'm sure
you'll forgive this seeming great rudeness on the part of my wife.
Notwithstanding the lurid tales of our young friends here, I suspect
nothing more serious has happened than that my wife has been hastily
summoned to Aunt Hannah, perhaps. Or, of course, she may not have
understood that you were coming to-day at half-past three--though I
thought she did. But I'm so sorry--when you were so kind as to come--”
 Miss Winthrop interrupted with a quick gesture.

“Say no more, I beg of you,” she entreated. “Mrs. Henshaw is quite
excusable, I'm sure. Please don't give it another thought,” she
finished, as with a hurried direction to the man who was holding open
the door of her car, she stepped inside and bowed her good-byes.

Bertram, with stern self-control, forced himself to walk nonchalantly
up his steps, leisurely take out his key, and open his door, under the
interested eyes of Bessie Bailey and her friends; but once beyond their
hateful stare, his demeanor underwent a complete change. Throwing aside
his hat and coat, he strode to the telephone.

“Oh, is that you, Aunt Hannah?” he called crisply, a moment later.
“Well, if Billy's there will you tell her I want to speak to her,
please?”

“Billy?” answered Aunt Hannah's slow, gentle tones. “Why, my dear boy,
Billy isn't here!”

“She isn't? Well, when did she leave? She's been there, hasn't she?”

“Why, I don't think so, but I'll see, if you like. Mrs. Greggory and
I have just this minute come in from an automobile ride. We would have
stayed longer, but it began to get chilly, and I forgot to take one of
the shawls that I'd laid out.”

“Yes; well, if you will see, please, if Billy has been there, and when
she left,” said Bertram, with grim self-control.

“All right. I'll see,” murmured Aunt Hannah. In a few moments her voice
again sounded across the wires. “Why, no, Bertram, Rosa says she hasn't
been here since yesterday. Isn't she there somewhere about the house?
Didn't you know where she was going?”

“Well, no, I didn't--else I shouldn't have been asking you,” snapped
the irate Bertram and hung up the receiver with most rude haste, thereby
cutting off an astounded “Oh, my grief and conscience!” in the middle of
it.

The next ten minutes Bertram spent in going through the whole house,
from garret to basement. Needless to say, he found nothing to enlighten
him, or to soothe his temper. Four o'clock came, then half-past, and
five. At five Bertram began to look for Eliza, but in vain. At half-past
five he watched for William; but William, too, did not come.

Bertram was pacing the floor now, nervously. He was a little frightened,
but more mortified and angry. That Billy should have allowed Miss
Winthrop to call by appointment only to find no hostess, no message,
no maid, even, to answer her ring--it was inexcusable! Impulsiveness,
unconventionality, and girlish irresponsibility were all very
delightful, of course--at times; but not now, certainly. Billy was not
a girl any longer. She was a married woman. _Something_ was due to him,
her husband! A pretty picture he must have made on those steps, trying
to apologize for a truant wife, and to laugh off that absurd Bessie
Bailey's preposterous assertion at the same time! What would Miss
Winthrop think? What could she think? Bertram fairly ground his teeth
with chagrin, at the situation in which he found himself.

Nor were matters helped any by the fact that Bertram was hungry.
Bertram's luncheon had been meager and unsatisfying. That the kitchen
down-stairs still remained in silent, spotless order instead of being
astir with the sounds and smells of a good dinner (as it should have
been) did not improve his temper. Where Billy was he could not imagine.
He thought, once or twice, of calling up some of her friends; but
something held him back from that--though he did try to get Marie,
knowing very well that she was probably over to the new house and would
not answer. He was not surprised, therefore, when he received no reply
to his ring.

That there was the slightest truth in Bessie Bailey's absurd “elopement”
 idea, Bertram did not, of course, for an instant believe. The only
thing that rankled about that was the fact that she had suggested such a
thing, and that Miss Winthrop and those silly children had heard her. He
recognized half of Bessie's friends as neighborhood youngsters, and he
knew very well that there would be many a quiet laugh at his expense
around various Beacon Street dinner-tables that night. At the thought
of those dinner-tables, he scowled again. _He_ had no dinner-table--at
least, he had no dinner on it!

Who the man might be Bertram thought he could easily guess. It was
either Arkwright or Calderwell, of course; and probably that tiresome
Alice Greggory was mixed up in it somehow. He did wish Billy--

Six o'clock came, then half-past. Bertram was indeed frightened now, but
he was more angry, and still more hungry. He had, in fact, reached that
state of blind unreasonableness said to be peculiar to hungry males from
time immemorial.

At ten minutes of seven a key clicked in the lock of the outer door, and
William and Billy entered the hall.

It was almost dark. Bertram could not see their faces. He had not
lighted the hall at all.

“Well,” he began sharply, “is this the way you receive your callers,
Billy? I came home and found Miss Winthrop just leaving--no one here
to receive her! Where've you been? Where's Eliza? Where's my dinner?
Of course I don't mean to scold, Billy, but there is a limit to even
my patience--and it's reached now. I can't help suggesting that if
you would tend to your husband and your home a little more, and go
gallivanting off with Calderwell and Arkwright and Alice Greggory a
little less, that--Where is Eliza, anyway?” he finished irritably,
switching on the lights with a snap.

There was a moment of dead silence. At Bertram's first words Billy and
William had stopped short. Neither had moved since. Now William turned
and began to speak, but Billy interrupted. She met her husband's gaze
steadily.

“I will be down at once to get your dinner,” she said quietly. “Eliza
will not come to-night. Pete is dead.”

Bertram started forward with a quick cry.

“Dead! Oh, Billy! Then you were--_there!_ Billy!”

But his wife did not apparently hear him. She passed him without turning
her head, and went on up the stairs, leaving him to meet the sorrowful,
accusing eyes of William.




CHAPTER XV. AFTER THE STORM


The young husband's apologies were profuse and abject. Bertram was
heartily ashamed of himself, and was man enough to acknowledge it.
Almost on his knees he begged Billy to forgive him; and in a frenzy
of self-denunciation he followed her down into the kitchen that night,
piteously beseeching her to speak to him, to just _look_ at him, even,
so that he might know he was not utterly despised--though he did,
indeed, deserve to be more than despised, he moaned.

At first Billy did not speak, or even vouchsafe a glance in his
direction. Very quietly she went about her preparations for a simple
meal, paying apparently no more attention to Bertram than as if he were
not there. But that her ears were only seemingly, and not really deaf,
was shown very clearly a little later, when, at a particularly abject
wail on the part of the babbling shadow at her heels, Billy choked into
a little gasp, half laughter, half sob. It was all over then. Bertram
had her in his arms in a twinkling, while to the floor clattered and
rolled a knife and a half-peeled baked potato.

Naturally, after that, there could be no more dignified silences on the
part of the injured wife. There were, instead, half-smil

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