Billy shook her head.
“No; I haven't written anything since last spring.”
“But you're going to?”
She drew a long sigh.
“Yes, oh, yes. I know that now—” With a swift biting of her lower lip Billy caught herself up in time. As if she could tell this man, this stranger, what she had told Bertram that night by the fire—that she knew that now, now she would write beautiful songs, with his love, and his pride in her, as incentives. “Oh, yes, I think I shall write more one of these days,” she finished lightly. “But come, this isn't singing duets! I want to see the music you brought.”
They sang then, one after another of the duets. To Billy, the music was new and interesting. To Billy, too, it was new (and interesting) to hear her own voice blending with another's so perfectly—to feel herself a part of such exquisite harmony.
“Oh, oh!” she breathed ecstatically, after the last note of a particularly beautiful phrase. “I never knew before how lovely it was to sing duets.”
“Nor I,” replied Arkwright in a voice that was not quite steady.
Arkwright's eyes were on the enraptured face of the girl so near him. It was well, perhaps, that Billy did not happen to turn and catch their expression. Still, it might have been better if she had turned, after all. But Billy's eyes were on the music before her. Her fingers were busy with the fluttering pages, searching for another duet.
“Didn't you?” she murmured abstractedly. “I supposed you'd sung them before; but you see I never did—until the other night. There, let's try this one!”