“And you'll telephone home between every act?”
“I will.” Bertram's voice sounded almost as if he were repeating the marriage service.
“And we'll come straight home afterwards as fast as John and Peggy can bring us?”
“Certainly.”
“Then I think—I'll—go,” breathed Billy, tremulously, plainly showing what a momentous concession she thought she was making. “I do love 'Romeo and Juliet,' and I haven't seen it for ages!”
“Good! Then I'll find out about the tickets,” cried Bertram, so elated at the prospect of having an old-time evening out with his wife that even the half-hourly telephones did not seem too great a price to pay.
When the time came, they were a little late in starting. Baby was fretful, and though Billy usually laid him in his crib and unhesitatingly left the room, insisting that he should go to sleep by himself in accordance with the most approved rules in her Scientific Training; yet to-night she could not bring herself to the point of leaving the house until he was quiet. Hurried as they were when they did start, Billy was conscious of Bertram's frowning disapproval of her frock.
“You don't like it, of course, dear, and I don't blame you,” she smiled remorsefully.
“Oh, I like it—that is, I did, when it was new,” rejoined her husband, with apologetic frankness. “But, dear, didn't you have anything else? This looks almost—well, mussy, you know.”
“No—well, yes, maybe there were others,” admitted Billy; “but this was the quickest and easiest to get into, and it all came just as I was getting Baby ready for bed, you know. I am a fright, though, I'll acknowledge, so far as clothes go. I haven't had time to get a thing since Baby came. I must get something right away, I suppose.”