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 bass.
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
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