With Billy's behavior toward himself, Bertram could find no fault. She was always her sweet, loyal, lovable self, eager to hear of his work, earnestly solicitous that it should be a success. She even—as he sometimes half-irritably remembered—had once told him that she realized he belonged to Art before he did to himself; and when he had indignantly denied this, she had only laughed and thrown a kiss at him, with the remark that he ought to hear his sister Kate's opinion of that matter. As if he wanted Kate's opinion on that or anything else that concerned him and Billy!
Once, torn by jealousy, and exasperated at the frequent interruptions of their quiet hours together, he had complained openly.
“Actually, Billy, it's worse than Marie's wedding,” he declared, “Then it was tablecloths and napkins that could be dumped in a chair. Now it's a girl who wants to rehearse, or a woman that wants a different wig, or a telephone message that the sopranos have quarrelled again. I loathe that operetta!”
Billy laughed, but she frowned, too.
“I know, dear; I don't like that part. I wish they would let me alone when I'm with you! But as for the operetta, it is really a good thing, dear, and you'll say so when you see it. It's going to be a great success—I can say that because my part is only a small one, you know. We shall make lots of money for the Home, too, I'm sure.”
“But you're wearing yourself all out with it, dear,” scowled Bertram.
“Nonsense! I like it; besides, when I'm doing this I'm not telephoning you to come and amuse me. Just think what a lot of extra time you have for your work!”
“Don't want it,” avowed Bertram.
“But the work may,” retorted Billy, showing all her dimples. “Never mind, though; it'll all be over after the twentieth. This isn't an understudy like Marie's wedding, you know,” she finished demurely.
“Thank heaven for that!” Bertram had breathed fervently. But even as he said the words he grew sick with fear. What if, after all, this were an understudy to what was to come later when Music, his rival, had really conquered?