"I never shall forget, _never_, my first glimpse of that room when Mrs.

Hartwell switched on the lights. Oh, Aunt Hannah, I wish you could have seen it before they took out those guns and spiders!"

"As if I didn't see quite enough when I saw William's face that morning he came for me!" retorted Aunt Hannah, spiritedly.

"Dear Uncle William! What an old saint he has been all the way through,"

mused Billy aloud. "And Cyril--who would ever have believed that the day would come when Cyril would say to me, as he did last night, that he felt as if Marie had been gone a month. It's been just seven days, you know."

"I know. She comes to-morrow, doesn't she?"

"Yes, and I'm glad. I shall tell Marie she needn't leave Cyril on _my_ hands again. Bertram says that at home Cyril hasn't played a dirge since his engagement; but I notice that up here--where Marie might be, but isn't--his tunes would never be mistaken for ragtime. By the way," she added, as she rose from the table, "that's another surprise in store for Hugh Calderwell. He always declared that Cyril wasn't a marrying man, either, any more than Bertram. You know he said Bertram only cared for girls to paint; but--" She stopped and looked inquiringly at Rosa, who had appeared at that moment in the hall doorway.

"It's the telephone, Miss Neilson. Mr. Bertram Henshaw wants you."

A few minutes later Aunt Hannah heard Billy at the piano. For fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes the brilliant scales and arpeggios rippled through the rooms and up the stairs to Aunt Hannah, who knew, by the very sound of them, that some unusual nervousness was being worked off at the finger tips that played them. At the end of forty-five minutes Aunt Hannah went down-stairs.

"Billy, my dear, excuse me, but have you forgotten what time it is?

Weren't you going out with Bertram?"

Billy stopped playing at once, but she did not turn her head. Her fingers busied themselves with some music on the piano.

"We aren't going, Aunt Hannah," she said.

"Bertram can't."

"_Can't!_"

"Well, he didn't want to--so of course I said not to. He's been painting this morning on a new portrait, and she said he might stay to luncheon and keep right on for a while this afternoon, if he liked. And--he did like, so he stayed."

"Why, how--how--" Aunt Hannah stopped helplessly.

"Oh, no, not at all," interposed Billy, lightly. "He told me all about it the other night. It's going to be a very wonderful portrait; and, of course, I wouldn't want to interfere with--his work!" And again a brilliant scale rippled from Billy's fingers after a crashing chord in the ba.s.s.

Slowly Aunt Hannah turned and went up-stairs. Her eyes were troubled.

Not since Billy's engagement had she heard Billy play like that.

Bertram did not find a pensive Billy awaiting him that evening. He found a bright-eyed, flushed-cheeked Billy, who let herself be kissed--once--but who did not kiss back; a blithe, elusive Billy, who played tripping little melodies, and sang jolly little songs, instead of sitting before the fire and talking; a Billy who at last turned, and asked tranquilly:

"Well, how did the picture go?"

Bertram rose then, crossed the room, and took Billy very gently into his arms.

"Sweetheart, you were a dear this noon to let me off like that," he began in a voice shaken with emotion. "You don't know, perhaps, exactly what you did. You see, I was nearly wild between wanting to be with you, and wanting to go on with my work. And I was just at that point where one little word from you, one hint that you wanted me to come anyway--and I should have come. But you didn't say it, nor hint it. Like the brave little bit of inspiration that you are, you bade me stay and go on with my work."

The "inspiration's" head drooped a little lower, but this only brought a wealth of soft bronze hair to just where Bertram could lay his cheek against it--and Bertram promptly took advantage of his opportunity. "And so I stayed, Billy, and I did good work; I know I did good work. Why, Billy,"--Bertram stepped back now, and held Billy by the shoulders at arms' length--"Billy, that's going to be the best work I've ever done. I can see it coming even now, under my fingers."

Billy lifted her head and looked into her lover's face. His eyes were glowing. His cheeks were flushed. His whole countenance was aflame with the soul of the artist who sees his vision taking shape before him. And Billy, looking at him, felt suddenly--ashamed.

"Oh, Bertram, I'm proud, proud, _proud_ of you!" she breathed. "Come, let's go over to the fire-and talk!"

CHAPTER V. MARIE SPEAKS HER MIND

Billy with John and Peggy met Marie Hawthorn at the station. "Peggy"

was short for "Pegasus," and was what Billy always called her luxurious, seven-seated touring car.

"I simply won't call it 'automobile,'" she had declared when she bought it. "In the first place, it takes too long to say it, and in the second place, I don't want to add one more to the nineteen different ways to p.r.o.nounce it that I hear all around me every day now. As for calling it my 'car,' or my 'motor car'--I should expect to see a Pullman or one of those huge black trucks before my door, if I ordered it by either of those names. Neither will I insult the beautiful thing by calling it a 'machine.' Its name is Pegasus. I shall call it 'Peggy.'"

And "Peggy" she called it. John sniffed his disdain, and Billy's friends made no secret of their amused tolerance; but, in an astonishingly short time, half the automobile owners of her acquaintance were calling their own cars "Peggy"; and even the dignified John himself was heard to order "some gasoline for Peggy," quite as a matter of course.

When Marie Hawthorn stepped from the train at the North Station she greeted Billy with affectionate warmth, though at once her blue eyes swept the s.p.a.ce beyond expectantly and eagerly.

Billy's lips curved in a mischievous smile.

"No, he didn't come," she said. "He didn't want to--a little bit."

Marie grew actually pale.

"Didn't _want_ to!" she stammered.

Billy gave her a spasmodic hug.

"Goosey! No, he didn't--a _little_ bit; but he did a great _big_ bit.

As if you didn't know he was dying to come, Marie! But he simply couldn't--something about his concert Monday night. He told me over the telephone; but between his joy that you were coming, and his rage that he couldn't see you the first minute you did come, I couldn't quite make out what was the trouble. But he's coming to dinner to-night, so he'll doubtless tell you all about it."

Marie sighed her relief.

"Oh, that's all right then. I was afraid he was sick--when I didn't see him."

Billy laughed softly.

"No, he isn't sick, Marie; but you needn't go away again before the wedding--not to leave him on my hands. I wouldn't have believed Cyril Henshaw, confirmed old bachelor and avowed woman-hater, could have acted the part of a love-sick boy as he has the last week or two."

The rose-flush on Marie's cheek spread to the roots of her fine yellow hair.

"Billy, dear, he--he didn't!"

"Marie, dear--he--he did!"

Marie laughed. She did not say anything, but the rose-flush deepened as she occupied herself very busily in getting her trunk-check from the little hand bag she carried.

Cyril was not mentioned again until the two girls, veils tied and coats b.u.t.toned, were snugly ensconced in the tonneau, and Peggy's nose was turned toward home. Then Billy asked:

"Have you settled on where you're going to live?"

"Not quite. We're going to talk of that to-night; but we _do_ know that we aren't going to live at the Strata."