Bertram gave a relieved laugh.
“Nonsense, sweetheart! I should think you were a picture I'd painted and hung on a wall.”
“I shall feel as if I were—with all those friends of yours. Bertram, what if they don't like it?” Her voice had grown tragic again.
“Like it!”
“Yes. The picture—me, I mean.”
“They can't help liking it,” he retorted, with the prompt certainty of an adoring lover.
Billy shook her head. Her eyes had gone back to the fire.
“Oh, yes, they can. I can hear them. 'What, she—Bertram Henshaw's wife?—a frivolous, inconsequential “Billy” like that?' Bertram!”—Billy turned fiercely despairing eyes on her lover—“Bertram, sometimes I wish my name were 'Clarissa Cordelia,' or 'Arabella Maud,' or 'Hannah Jane'—anything that's feminine and proper!”
Bertram's ringing laugh brought a faint smile to Billy's lips. But the words that followed the laugh, and the caressing touch of the man's hands sent a flood of shy color to her face.
“'Hannah Jane,' indeed! As if I'd exchange my Billy for her or any Clarissa or Arabella that ever grew! I adore Billy—flame, nature, and—”