"There! Now off you go again all silent and horrid!" chaffed Billy.

"What have I said now? Mr. Cyril--do you know what I think? I believe you've got NERVES!" Billy's voice was so tragic that the man could but laugh.

"Perhaps I have, Miss Billy."

"Like Miss Letty's?"

"I'm not acquainted with the lady."

"Gee! wouldn't you two make a pair!" chuckled Billy unexpectedly. "No; but, really, I mean--do you want people to walk on tiptoe and speak in whispers?"

"Sometimes, perhaps."

The girl sprang to her feet--but she sighed.

"Then I'm going. This might be one of the times, you know." She hesitated, then walked to the piano. "My, wouldn't I like to play on that!" she breathed.

Cyril shuddered. Cyril could imagine what Billy would play--and Cyril did not like "rag-time," nor "The Storm."

"Oh, do you play?" he asked constrainedly.

Billy shook her head.

"Not much. Only little bits of things, you know," she said wistfully, as she turned toward the door.

For some minutes after she had gone, Cyril stood where she had left him, his eyes moody and troubled.

"I suppose I might have played--something," he muttered at last; "but--'The Maiden's Prayer'!--good heavens!"

Billy was a little shy with Cyril when he came down to dinner that night. For the next few days, indeed, she held herself very obviously aloof from him. Cyril caught himself wondering once if she were afraid of his "nerves." He did not try to find out, however; he was too emphatically content that of her own accord she seemed to be leaving him in peace.

It must have been a week after Billy's visit to the top of the house that Cyril stopped his playing very abruptly one day, and opened his door to go down-stairs. At the first step he started back in amazement.

"Why, Billy!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

The girl was sitting very near the top of the stairway. At his appearance she got to her feet shamefacedly.

"Why, Billy, what in the world are you doing there?"

"Listening."

"Listening!"

"Yes. Do you mind?"

The man did not answer. He was too surprised to find words at once, and he was trying to recollect what he had been playing.

"You see, listening to music this way isn't like listening to--to talking," hurried on Billy, feverishly. "It isn't sneaking like that; is it?"

"Why--no."

"And you don't mind?"

"Why, surely, I ought not to mind--that," he admitted.

"Then I can keep right on as I have done. Thank you," sighed Billy, in relief.

"Keep right on! Have you been here before?"

"Why, yes, lots of days. And, say, Mr. Cyril, what is that--that thing that's all chords with big ba.s.s notes that keep saying something so fine and splendid that it marches on and on, getting bigger and grander, just as if there couldn't anything stop it, until it all ends in one great burst of triumph? Mr. Cyril, what is that?"

"Why, Billy!"--the interest this time in the man's face was not faint--"I wish I might make others catch my meaning as I have evidently made you do it! That's something of my own--that I'm writing, you understand; and I've tried to say--just what you say you heard."

"And I did hear it--I did! Oh, won't you play it, please, with the door open?"

"I can't, Billy. I'm sorry, indeed I am. But I've an appointment, and I'm late now. You shall hear it, though, I promise you, and with the door wide open," continued the man, as, with a murmured apology, he pa.s.sed the girl and hurried down the stairs.

Billy waited until she heard the outer hall door shut; then very softly she crept through Cyril's open doorway, and crossed the room to the piano.

CHAPTER XIII

A SURPRISE ALL AROUND

May came, and with it warm sunny days. There was a little balcony at the rear of the second floor, and on this Mrs. Stetson and Billy sat many a morning and sewed. There were occupations that Billy liked better than sewing; but she was dutiful, and she was really fond of Aunt Hannah; so she accepted as gracefully as possible that good lady's dictum that a woman who could not sew, and sew well, was no lady at all.

One of the things that Billy liked to do so much better than to sew was to play on Cyril's piano. She was very careful, however, that Mr. Cyril himself did not find this out. Cyril was frequently gone from the house, and almost as frequently Aunt Hannah took naps. At such times it was very easy to slip up-stairs to Cyril's rooms, and once at the piano, Billy forgot everything else.

One day, however, the inevitable happened: Cyril came home unexpectedly.

The man heard the piano from William's floor, and with a surprised e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n he hurried upstairs two steps at a time. At the door he stopped in amazement.

Billy was at the piano, but she was not playing "rag-time," "The Storm,"

nor yet "The Maiden's Prayer." There was no music before her, but under her fingers "big ba.s.s notes" very much like Cyril's own, were marching on and on to victory. Billy's face was rapturously intent and happy.

"By Jove--Billy!" gasped the man.

Billy leaped to her feet and whirled around guiltily.

"Oh, Mr. Cyril--I'm so sorry!"

"Sorry!--and you play like that!"

"No, no; I'm not sorry I played. It's because you--found me."

Billy's cheeks were a shamed red, but her eyes were defiantly brilliant, and her chin was at a rebellious tilt. "I wasn't doing any--harm; not if you weren't here--with your NERVES!"

The man laughed and came slowly into the room.