Miss Billy's Decision

  CHAPTER XVII. ONLY A LOVE SONG, BUT--

  Kate and little Kate left for the West on the afternoon ofthe fifteenth, and Bertram arrived from New York that evening.Notwithstanding the confusion of all this, Billy still had time to givesome thought to her experience of the morning with Uncle William.The forlorn little room with its poverty-stricken furnishings and itscrippled mistress was very vivid in Billy's memory. Equally vivid werethe flashing eyes of Alice Greggory as she had opened the door at thelast.

  "For," as Billy explained to Bertram that evening, after she had toldhim the story of the morning's adventure, "you see, dear, I had neverbeen really _turned out_ of a house before!"

  "I should think not," scowled her lover, indignantly; "and it's safe tosay you never will again. The impertinence of it! But then, you won'tsee them any more, sweetheart, so we'll just forget it."

  "Forget it! Why, Bertram, I couldn't! You couldn't, if you'd been there.Besides, of course I shall see them again!"

  Bertram's jaw dropped.

  "Why, Billy, you don't mean that Will, or you either, would try againfor that trumpery teapot!"

  "Of course not," flashed Billy, heatedly. "It isn't the teapot--it'sthat dear little Mrs. Greggory. Why, dearie, you don't know how poorthey are! Everything in sight is so old and thin and worn it's enough tobreak your heart. The rug isn't anything but darns, nor the tablecloth,either--except patches. It's awful, Bertram!"

  "I know, darling; but _you_ don't expect to buy them new rugs and newtablecloths, do you?"

  Billy gave one of her unexpected laughs.

  "Mercy!" she chuckled. "Only picture Miss Alice's face if I _should_ tryto buy them rugs and tablecloths! No, dear," she went on more seriously,"I sha'n't do that, of course--though I'd like to; but I shall try tosee Mrs. Greggory again, if it's nothing more than a rose or a book or anew magazine that I can take to her."

  "Or a smile--which I fancy will be the best gift of the lot," amendedBertram, fondly.

  Billy dimpled and shook her head.

  "Smiles--my smiles--are not so valuable, I'm afraid--except to you,perhaps," she laughed.

  "Self-evident facts need no proving," retorted Bertram. "Well, and whatelse has happened in all these ages I've been away?"

  Billy brought her hands together with a sudden cry.

  "Oh, and I haven't told you!" she exclaimed. "I'm writing a new song--alove song. Mary Jane wrote the words. They're beautiful."

  Bertram stiffened.

  "Indeed! And is--Mary Jane a poet, with all the rest?" he asked, withaffected lightness.

  "Oh, no, of course not," smiled Billy; "but these words _are_ pretty.And they just sang themselves into the dearest little melody right away.So I'm writing the music for them."

  "Lucky Mary Jane!" murmured Bertram, still with a lightness that hehoped would pass for indifference. (Bertram was ashamed of himself, butdeep within him was a growing consciousness that he knew the meaningof the vague irritation that he always felt at the mere mention ofArkwright's name.) "And will the title-page say, 'Words by Mary JaneArkwright'?" he finished.

  "That's what I asked him," laughed Billy.

  "I even suggested 'Methuselah John' for a change. Oh, but, dearie," shebroke off with shy eagerness, "I just want you to hear a little of whatI've done with it. You see, really, all the time, I suspect, I've beensinging it--to you," she confessed with an endearing blush, as shesprang lightly to her feet and hurried to the piano.

  It was a bad ten minutes that Bertram Henshaw spent then. How he couldlove a song and hate it at the same time he did not understand; but heknew that he was doing exactly that. To hear Billy carol "Sweetheart, mysweetheart!" with that joyous tenderness was bliss unspeakable--until heremembered that Arkwright wrote the "Sweetheart, my sweetheart!" then itwas--(Even in his thoughts Bertram bit the word off short. He was not aswearing man.) When he looked at Billy now at the piano, and thought ofher singing--as she said she had sung--that song to him all through thelast three days, his heart glowed. But when he looked at her and thoughtof Arkwright, who had made possible that singing, his heart froze withterror.

  From the very first it had been music that Bertram had feared. He couldnot forget that Billy herself had once told him that never would shelove any man better than she loved her music; that she was not goingto marry. All this had been at the first--the very first. He had boldlyscorned the idea then, and had said:

  "So it's music--a cold, senseless thing of spidery marks on clean whitepaper--that is my only rival!"

  He had said, too, that he was going to win. And he had won--butnot until after long weeks of fearing, hoping, striving, anddespairing--this last when Kate's blundering had nearly made herWilliam's wife. Then, on that memorable day in September, Billy hadwalked straight into his arms; and he knew that he had, indeed, won.That is, he had supposed that he knew--until Arkwright came.

  Very sharply now, as he listened to Billy's singing, Bertram toldhimself to be reasonable, to be sensible; that Billy did, indeed, lovehim. Was she not, according to her own dear assertion, singing that songto him? But it was Arkwright's song. He remembered that, too--and grewfaint at the thought. True, he had won when his rival, music, had beena "cold, senseless thing of spidery marks" on paper; but would thatwinning stand when "music" had become a thing of flesh and blood--a manof undeniable charm, good looks, and winsomeness; a man whose thoughts,aims, and words were the personification of the thing Billy, in the longago, had declared she loved best of all--music?

  Bertram shivered as with a sudden chill; then Billy rose from the piano.

  "There!" she breathed, her face shyly radiant with the glory of thesong. "Did you--like it?"

  Bertram did his best; but, in his state of mind, the very radiance ofher face was only an added torture, and his tongue stumbled over thewords of praise and appreciation that he tried to say. He saw, then, thehappy light in Billy's eyes change to troubled questioning and grieveddisappointment; and he hated himself for a jealous brute. More earnestlythan ever, now, he tried to force the ring of sincerity into his voice;but he knew that he had miserably failed when he heard her falter:

  "Of course, dear, I--I haven't got it nearly perfected yet. It'll bemuch better, later."

  "But it s{sic} fine, now, sweetheart--indeed it is," protested Bertram,hurriedly.

  "Well, of course I'm glad--if you like it," murmured Billy; but the glowdid not come back to her face.