“There, I think the tilt of this chin is perfect.” It was Bertram speaking.
Billy gave a sudden cry. Her face whitened. She stumbled forward.
“No, no, Bertram, you—you didn't mean the—the tilt of the chin,” she faltered wildly.
The man turned in amazement.
“Why—Billy!” he stammered. “Billy, what is it?”
The girl fell back at once. She tried to laugh lightly. She had seen the dismayed questioning in her lover's eyes, and in the eyes of William and the others.
“N-nothing,” she gesticulated hurriedly. “It was nothing at all, truly.”
“But, Billy, it was something.” Bertram's eyes were still troubled. “Was it the picture? I thought you liked this picture.”
Billy laughed again—this time more naturally.
“Bertram, I'm ashamed of you—expecting me to say I 'like' any of this,” she scolded, with a wave of her hands toward the omnipresent Billy. “Why, I feel as if I were in a room with a thousand mirrors, and that I'd been discovered putting rouge on my cheeks and lampblack on my eyebrows!”