“Well, didn't you expect everybody would know it, my dear?”      

       “Y-yes; but—”      

       At her hesitation, the tender light changed to a quick fear.     

       “Billy, you aren't—sorry?”      

       The pink glory that suffused her face answered him before her words did.     

       “Sorry! Oh, never, Bertram! It's only that it won't be ours any longer—that is, it won't belong to just our two selves. Everybody will know it. And they'll bow and smile and say 'How lovely!' to our faces, and 'Did you ever?' to our backs. Oh, no, I'm not sorry, Bertram; but I am—afraid.”      

       “Afraid—Billy!”      

       “Yes.”      

       Billy sighed, and gazed with pensive eyes into the fire.     

       Across Bertram's face swept surprise, consternation, and dismay. Bertram had thought he knew Billy in all her moods and fancies; but he did not know her in this one.     

       “Why, Billy!” he breathed.     

       Billy drew another sigh. It seemed to come from the very bottoms of her small, satin-slippered feet.     

       “Well, I am. You're the Bertram Henshaw. You know lots and lots of people that I never even saw. And they'll come and stand around and stare and lift their lorgnettes and say: 'Is that the one? Dear me!'”      

       Bertram gave a relieved laugh.     

       “Nonsense, sweetheart! I should think you were a picture I'd painted and hung on a wall.”      

       “I shall feel as if I were—with all those friends of yours. Bertram, what if they don't like it?” Her voice had grown tragic again.     

       “Like it!”      

       “Yes. The picture—me, I mean.”      

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