“I told you, didn't I? He's coming up this afternoon. He can't get here till five, though; but he's so interested! He's about as crazy over the thing as I am. And it's going to be fine, Aunt Hannah, when it's done. You just wait and see!” she finished gayly, as she tripped from the room.
Left to herself, Aunt Hannah drew a long breath.
“I'm glad she didn't suspect,” she was thinking. “I believe she'd consider even the question disloyal to Bertram—dear child! And of course Mary”—Aunt Hannah corrected herself with cheeks aflame—“I mean Mr. Arkwright does—know.”
It was just here, however, that Aunt Hannah was mistaken. Mr. Arkwright did not—know. He had not reached Boston when the engagement was announced. He knew none of Billy's friends in town save the Henshaw brothers. He had not heard from Calderwell since he came to Boston. The very evident intimacy of Billy with the Henshaw brothers he accepted as a matter of course, knowing the history of their acquaintance, and the fact that Billy was Mr. William Henshaw's namesake. As to Bertram being Billy's lover—that idea had long ago been killed at birth by Calderwell's emphatic assertion that the artist would never care for any girl—except to paint. Since coming to Boston, Arkwright had seen little of the two together. His work, his friends, and his general mode of life precluded that. Because of all this, therefore, Arkwright did not—know; which was a pity—for Arkwright, and for some others.
Promptly at five o'clock that afternoon, Arkwright rang Billy's doorbell, and was admitted by Rosa to the living-room, where Billy was at the piano.
Billy sprang to her feet with a joyous word of greeting.
“I'm so glad you've come,” she sighed happily. “I want you to hear the melody your pretty words have sung to me. Though, maybe, after all, you won't like it, you know,” she finished with arch wistfulness.
“As if I could help liking it,” smiled the man, trying to keep from his voice the ecstatic delight that the touch of her hand had brought him.
Billy shook her head and seated herself again at the piano.
“The words are lovely,” she declared, sorting out two or three sheets of manuscript music from the quantity on the rack before her. “But there's one place—the rhythm, you know—if you could change it. There!—but listen. First I'm going to play it straight through to you.” And she dropped her fingers to the keyboard. The next moment a tenderly sweet melody—with only a chord now and then for accompaniment—filled Arkwright's soul with rapture. Then Billy began to sing, very softly, the words!