“Thank you. I knew you wouldn't.” He paused, then rose to his feet. When he spoke again his voice carried a note of whimsical lightness that was a little forced. “But I must go—else you will take them from me, and with good reason. And please don't let your kind heart grieve too much—over me. I'm no deep-dyed villain in a melodrama, nor wicked lover in a ten-penny novel, you know. I'm just an everyday man in real life; and we're going to fight this thing out in everyday living. That's where your help is coming in. We'll go together to see Mrs. Bertram Henshaw. She's asked us to, and you'll do it, I know. We'll have music and everyday talk. We'll see Mrs. Bertram Henshaw in her own home with her husband, where she belongs; and—I'm not going to run again. But—I'm counting on your help, you know,” he smiled a little wistfully, as he held out his hand in good-by.
One minute later Alice Greggory, alone, was hurrying up-stairs.
“I can't—I can't—I know I can't,” she was whispering wildly. Then, in her own room, she faced herself in the mirror. “Yes—you—can, Alice Greggory,” she asserted, with swift change of voice and manner. “This is your tiger skin, and you're going to fight it. Do you understand?—fight it! And you're going to win, too. Do you want that man to know you—care?”
CHAPTER VI. “THE PAINTING LOOK”
It was toward the last of October that Billy began to notice her husband's growing restlessness. Twice, when she had been playing to him, she turned to find him testing the suppleness of his injured arm. Several times, failing to receive an answer to her questions, she had looked up to discover him gazing abstractedly at nothing in particular.
They read and walked and talked together, to be sure, and Bertram's devotion to her lightest wish was beyond question; but more and more frequently these days Billy found him hovering over his sketches in his studio; and once, when he failed to respond to the dinner-bell, search revealed him buried in a profound treatise on “The Art of Foreshortening.”
Then came the day when Billy, after an hour's vain effort to imprison within notes a tantalizing melody, captured the truant and rain down to the studio to tell Bertram of her victory.
But Bertram did not seem even to hear her. True, he leaped to his feet and hurried to meet her, his face radiantly aglow; but she had not ceased to speak before he himself was talking.
“Billy, Billy, I've been sketching,” he cried. “My hand is almost steady. See, some of those lines are all right! I just picked up a crayon and—” He stopped abruptly, his eyes on Billy's face. A vaguely troubled shadow crossed his own. “Did—did you—were you saying anything in—in particular, when you came in?” he stammered.