“I have a letter here from Mary Jane, my dear,” announced Aunt Hannah at the luncheon table one day.
“Have you?” Billy raised interested eyes from her own letters. “What does she say?”
“She will be here Thursday. Her train is due at the South Station at four-thirty. She seems to be very grateful to you for your offer to let her come right here for a month; but she says she's afraid you don't realize, perhaps, just what you are doing—to take her in like that, with her singing, and all.”
“Nonsense! She doesn't refuse, does she?”
“Oh, no; she doesn't refuse—but she doesn't accept either, exactly, as I can see. I've read the letter over twice, too. I'll let you judge for yourself by and by, when you have time to read it.”
Billy laughed.
“Never mind. I don't want to read it. She's just a little shy about coming, that's all. She'll stay all right, when we come to meet her. What time did you say it was, Thursday?”
“Half past four, South Station.”
“Thursday, at half past four. Let me see—that's the day of the Carletons' 'At Home,' isn't it?”
“Oh, my grief and conscience, yes! But I had forgotten it. What shall we do?”
“Oh, that will be easy. We'll just go to the Carletons' early and have John wait, then take us from there to the South Station. Meanwhile we'll make sure that the little blue room is all ready for her. I put in my white enamel work-basket yesterday, and that pretty little blue case for hairpins and curling tongs that I bought at the fair. I want the room to look homey to her, you know.”
“As if it could look any other way, ifyouhad anything to do with it,” sighed Aunt Hannah, admiringly.
Billy laughed.
“If we get stranded we might ask the Henshaw boys to help us out, Aunt Hannah. They'd probably suggest guns and swords. That's the way they fixed upmyroom.”
Aunt Hannah raised shocked hands of protest.
“As if we would! Mercy, what a time that was!”
Billy laughed again.
“I never shall forget,never, my first glimpse of that room when Mrs. Hartwell switched on the lights. Oh, Aunt Hannah, I wish you could have seen it before they took out those guns and spiders!”
“As if I didn't see quite enough when I saw William's face that morning he came for me!” retorted Aunt Hannah, spiritedly.
“Dear Uncle William! What an old saint he has been all the way through,” mused Billy aloud. “And Cyril—who would ever have believed that the day would come when Cyril would say to me, as he did last night, that he felt as if Marie had been gone a month. It's been just seven days, you know.”
“I know. She comes to-morrow, doesn't she?”
“Yes, and I'm glad. I shall tell Marie she needn't leave Cyril onmyhands again. Bertram says that at home Cyril hasn't played a dirge since his engagement; but I notice that up here—where Marie might be, but isn't—his tunes would never be mistaken for ragtime. By the way,” she added, as she rose from the table, “that's another surprise in store for Hugh Calderwell. He always declared that Cyril wasn't a marrying man, either, any more than Bertram. You know he said Bertram only cared for girls to paint; but—” She stopped and looked inquiringly at Rosa, who had appeared at that moment in the hall doorway.
“It's the telephone, Miss Neilson. Mr. Bertram Henshaw wants you.”
A few minutes later Aunt Hannah heard Billy at the piano. For fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes the brilliant scales and arpeggios rippled through the rooms and up the stairs to Aunt Hannah, who knew, by the very sound of them, that some unusual nervousness was being worked off at the finger tips that played them. At the end of forty-five minutes Aunt Hannah went down-stairs.
“Billy, my dear, excuse me, but have you forgotten what time it is? Weren't you going out with Bertram?”
Billy stopped playing at once, but she did not turn her head. Her fingers busied themselves with some music on the piano.
“We aren't going, Aunt Hannah,” she said.
“Bertram can't.”
“Can't!”
“Well, he didn't want to—so of course I said not to. He's been painting this morning on a new portrait, and she said he might stay to luncheon and keep right on for a while this afternoon, if he liked. And—he did like, so he stayed.”
“Why, how—how—” Aunt Hannah stopped helplessly.
“Oh, no, not at all,” interposed Billy, lightly. “He told me all about it the other night. It's going to be a very wonderful portrait; and, of course, I wouldn't want to interfere with—his work!” And again a brilliant scale rippled from Billy's fingers after a crashing chord in the bass.
Slowly Aunt Hannah turned and went up-stairs. Her eyes were troubled. Not since Billy's engagement had she heard Billy play like that.
Bertram did not find a pensive Billy awaiting him that evening. He found a bright-eyed, flushed-cheeked Billy, who let herself be kissed—once—but who did not kiss back; a blithe, elusive Billy, who played tripping little melodies, and sang jolly little songs, instead of sitting before the fire and talking; a Billy who at last turned, and asked tranquilly:
“Well, how did the picture go?”
Bertram rose then, crossed the room, and took Billy very gently into his arms.
“Sweetheart, you were a dear this noon to let me off like that,” he began in a voice shaken with emotion. “You don't know, perhaps, exactly what you did. You see, I was nearly wild between wanting to be with you, and wanting to go on with my work. And I was just at that point where one little word from you, one hint that you wanted me to come anyway—and I should have come. But you didn't say it, nor hint it. Like the brave little bit of inspiration that you are, you bade me stay and go on with my work.”
The “inspiration's” head drooped a little lower, but this only brought a wealth of soft bronze hair to just where Bertram could lay his cheek against it—and Bertram promptly took advantage of his opportunity. “And so I stayed, Billy, and I did good work; I know I did good work. Why, Billy,”—Bertram stepped back now, and held Billy by the shoulders at arms' length—“Billy, that's going to be the best work I've ever done. I can see it coming even now, under my fingers.”
Billy lifted her head and looked into her lover's face. His eyes were glowing. His cheeks were flushed. His whole countenance was aflame with the soul of the artist who sees his vision taking shape before him. And Billy, looking at him, felt suddenly—ashamed.
“Oh, Bertram, I'm proud, proud,proudof you!” she breathed. “Come, let's go over to the fire-and talk!”
Billy with John and Peggy met Marie Hawthorn at the station. “Peggy” was short for “Pegasus,” and was what Billy always called her luxurious, seven-seated touring car.
“I simply won't call it 'automobile,'” she had declared when she bought it. “In the first place, it takes too long to say it, and in the second place, I don't want to add one more to the nineteen different ways to pronounce it that I hear all around me every day now. As for calling it my 'car,' or my 'motor car'—I should expect to see a Pullman or one of those huge black trucks before my door, if I ordered it by either of those names. Neither will I insult the beautiful thing by calling it a 'machine.' Its name is Pegasus. I shall call it 'Peggy.'”
And “Peggy” she called it. John sniffed his disdain, and Billy's friends made no secret of their amused tolerance; but, in an astonishingly short time, half the automobile owners of her acquaintance were calling their own cars “Peggy”; and even the dignified John himself was heard to order “some gasoline for Peggy,” quite as a matter of course.
When Marie Hawthorn stepped from the train at the North Station she greeted Billy with affectionate warmth, though at once her blue eyes swept the space beyond expectantly and eagerly.
Billy's lips curved in a mischievous smile.
“No, he didn't come,” she said. “He didn't want to—a little bit.”
Marie grew actually pale.
“Didn'twantto!” she stammered.
Billy gave her a spasmodic hug.
“Goosey! No, he didn't—alittlebit; but he did a greatbigbit. As if you didn't know he was dying to come, Marie! But he simply couldn't—something about his concert Monday night. He told me over the telephone; but between his joy that you were coming, and his rage that he couldn't see you the first minute you did come, I couldn't quite make out what was the trouble. But he's coming to dinner to-night, so he'll doubtless tell you all about it.”
Marie sighed her relief.
“Oh, that's all right then. I was afraid he was sick—when I didn't see him.”
Billy laughed softly.
“No, he isn't sick, Marie; but you needn't go away again before the wedding—not to leave him on my hands. I wouldn't have believed Cyril Henshaw, confirmed old bachelor and avowed woman-hater, could have acted the part of a love-sick boy as he has the last week or two.”
The rose-flush on Marie's cheek spread to the roots of her fine yellow hair.
“Billy, dear, he—he didn't!”
“Marie, dear—he—he did!”
Marie laughed. She did not say anything, but the rose-flush deepened as she occupied herself very busily in getting her trunk-check from the little hand bag she carried.
Cyril was not mentioned again until the two girls, veils tied and coats buttoned, were snugly ensconced in the tonneau, and Peggy's nose was turned toward home. Then Billy asked:
“Have you settled on where you're going to live?”
“Not quite. We're going to talk of that to-night; but wedoknow that we aren't going to live at the Strata.”
“Marie!”
Marie stirred uneasily at the obvious disappointment and reproach in her friend's voice.
“But, dear, it wouldn't be wise, I'm sure,” she argued hastily. “There will be you and Bertram—”
“We sha'n't be there for a year, nearly,” cut in Billy, with swift promptness. “Besides, I think it would be lovely—all together.”
Marie smiled, but she shook her head.
“Lovely—but not practical, dear.”
Billy laughed ruefully.
“I know; you're worrying about those puddings of yours. You're afraid somebody is going to interfere with your making quite so many as you want to; and Cyril is worrying for fear there'll be somebody else in the circle of his shaded lamp besides his little Marie with the light on her hair, and the mending basket by her side.”
“Billy, what are you talking about?”
Billy threw a roguish glance into her friend's amazed blue eyes.
“Oh, just a little picture Cyril drew once for me of what home meant for him: a room with a table and a shaded lamp, and a little woman beside it with the light on her hair and a great basket of sewing by her side.”
Marie's eyes softened.
“Did he say—that?”
“Yes. Oh, he declared he shouldn't want her to sit under that lamp all the time, of course; but he hoped she'd like that sort of thing.”
Marie threw a quick glance at the stolid back of John beyond the two empty seats in front of them. Although she knew he could not hear her words, instinctively she lowered her voice.
“Did you know—then—about—me?” she asked, with heightened color.
“No, only that there was a girl somewhere who, he hoped, would sit under the lamp some day. And when I asked him if the girl did like that sort of thing, he said yes, he thought so; for she had told him once that the things she liked best of all to do were to mend stockings and make puddings. Then I knew, of course, 'twas you, for I'd heard you say the same thing. So I sent him right along out to you in the summer-house.”
The pink flush on Marie's face grew to a red one. Her blue eyes turned again to John's broad back, then drifted to the long, imposing line of windowed walls and doorways on the right. The automobile was passing smoothly along Beacon Street now with the Public Garden just behind them on the left. After a moment Marie turned to Billy again.
“I'm so glad he wants—just puddings and stockings,” she began a little breathlessly. “You see, for so long I supposed hewouldn'twant anything but a very brilliant, talented wife who could play and sing beautifully; a wife he'd be proud of—like you.”
“Me? Nonsense!” laughed Billy. “Cyril never wanted me, and I never wanted him—only once for a few minutes, so to speak, when I thought, I did. In spite of our music, we aren't a mite congenial. I like people around; he doesn't. I like to go to plays; he doesn't. He likes rainy days, and I abhor them. Mercy! Life with me for him would be one long jangling discord, my love, while with you it'll be one long sweet song!”
Marie drew a deep breath. Her eyes were fixed on a point far ahead up the curveless street.
“I hope it will, indeed!” she breathed.
Not until they were almost home did Billy say suddenly:
“Oh, did Cyril write you? A young relative of Aunt Hannah's is coming to-morrow to stay a while at the house.”
“Er—yes, Cyril told me,” admitted Marie.
Billy smiled.
“Didn't like it, I suppose; eh?” she queried shrewdly.
“N-no, I'm afraid he didn't—very well. He said she'd be—one more to be around.”
“There, what did I tell you?” dimpled Billy. “You can see what you're coming to when you do get that shaded lamp and the mending basket!”
A moment later, coming in sight of the house, Billy saw a tall, smooth-shaven man standing on the porch. The man lifted his hat and waved it gayly, baring a slightly bald head to the sun.
“It's Uncle William—bless his heart!” cried Billy. “They're all coming to dinner, then he and Aunt Hannah and Bertram and I are going down to the Hollis Street Theatre and let you and Cyril have a taste of what that shaded lamp is going to be. I hope you won't be lonesome,” she finished mischievously, as the car drew up before the door.
After a week of beautiful autumn weather, Thursday dawned raw and cold. By noon an east wind had made the temperature still more uncomfortable.
At two o'clock Aunt Hannah tapped at Billy's chamber door. She showed a troubled face to the girl who answered her knock.
“Billy,wouldyou mind very much if I asked you to go alone to the Carletons' and to meet Mary Jane?” she inquired anxiously.
“Why, no—that is, of course I shouldmind, dear, because I always like to have you go to places with me. But it isn't necessary. You aren't sick; are you?”
“N-no, not exactly; but I have been sneezing all the morning, and taking camphor and sugar to break it up—if it is a cold. But it is so raw and Novemberish out, that—”
“Why, of course you sha'n't go, you poor dear! Mercy! don't get one of those dreadful colds on to you before the wedding! Have you felt a draft? Where's another shawl?” Billy turned and cast searching eyes about the room—Billy always kept shawls everywhere for Aunt Hannah's shoulders and feet. Bertram had been known to say, indeed, that a room, according to Aunt Hannah, was not fully furnished unless it contained from one to four shawls, assorted as to size and warmth. Shawls, certainly, did seem to be a necessity with Aunt Hannah, as she usually wore from one to three at the same time—which again caused Bertram to declare that he always counted Aunt Hannah's shawls when he wished to know what the thermometer was.
“No, I'm not cold, and I haven't felt a draft,” said Aunt Hannah now. “I put on my thickest gray shawl this morning with the little pink one for down-stairs, and the blue one for breakfast; so you see I've been very careful. But Ihavesneezed six times, so I think 'twould be safer not to go out in this east wind. You were going to stop for Mrs. Granger, anyway, weren't you? So you'll have her with you for the tea.”
“Yes, dear, don't worry. I'll take your cards and explain to Mrs. Carleton and her daughters.”
“And, of course, as far as Mary Jane is concerned, I don't know her any more than you do; so I couldn't be any help there,” sighed Aunt Hannah.
“Not a bit,” smiled Billy, cheerily. “Don't give it another thought, my dear. I sha'n't have a bit of trouble. All I'll have to do is to look for a girl alone with a pink. Of course I'll have mine on, too, and she'll be watching for me. So just run along and take your nap, dear, and be all rested and ready to welcome her when she comes,” finished Billy, stooping to give the soft, faintly pink cheek a warm kiss.
“Well, thank you, my dear; perhaps I will,” sighed Aunt Hannah, drawing the gray shawl about her as she turned away contentedly.
Mrs. Carleton's tea that afternoon was, for Billy, not an occasion of unalloyed joy. It was the first time she had appeared at a gathering of any size since the announcement of her engagement; and, as she dolefully told Bertram afterwards, she had very much the feeling of the picture hung on the wall.
“And theydidput up their lorgnettes and say, 'Isthatthe one?'” she declared; “and I know some of them finished with 'Did you ever?' too,” she sighed.
But Billy did not stay long in Mrs. Carleton's softly-lighted, flower-perfumed rooms. At ten minutes past four she was saying good-by to a group of friends who were vainly urging her to remain longer.
“I can't—I really can't,” she declared. “I'm due at the South Station at half past four to meet a Miss Arkwright, a young cousin of Aunt Hannah's, whom I've never seen before. We're to meet at the sign of the pink,” she explained smilingly, just touching the single flower she wore.
Her hostess gave a sudden laugh.
“Let me see, my dear; if I remember rightly, you've had experience before, meeting at this sign of the pink. At least, I have a very vivid recollection of Mr. William Henshaw's going once to meet aboywith a pink, who turned out to be a girl. Now, to even things up, your girl should turn out to be a boy!”
Billy smiled and reddened.
“Perhaps—but I don't think to-day will strike the balance,” she retorted, backing toward the door. “This young lady's name is 'Mary Jane'; and I'll leave it to you to find anything very masculine in that!”
It was a short drive from Mrs. Carleton's Commonwealth Avenue home to the South Station, and Peggy made as quick work of it as the narrow, congested cross streets would allow. In ample time Billy found herself in the great waiting-room, with John saying respectfully in her ear:
“The man says the train comes in on Track Fourteen, Miss, an' it's on time.”
At twenty-nine minutes past four Billy left her seat and walked down the train-shed platform to Track Number Fourteen. She had pinned the pink now to the outside of her long coat, and it made an attractive dash of white against the dark-blue velvet. Billy was looking particularly lovely to-day. Framing her face was the big dark-blue velvet picture hat with its becoming white plumes.
During the brief minutes' wait before the clanging locomotive puffed into view far down the long track, Billy's thoughts involuntarily went back to that other watcher beside a train gate not quite five years before.
“Dear Uncle William!” she murmured tenderly. Then suddenly she laughed—so nearly aloud that a man behind her gave her a covert glance from curious eyes. “My! but what a jolt I must have been to Uncle William!” Billy was thinking.
The next minute she drew nearer the gate and regarded with absorbed attention the long line of passengers already sweeping up the narrow aisle between the cars.
Hurrying men came first, with long strides, and eyes that looked straight ahead. These Billy let pass with a mere glance. The next group showed a sprinkling of women—women whose trig hats and linen collars spelled promptness as well as certainty of aim and accomplishment. To these, also, Billy paid scant attention. Couples came next—the men anxious-eyed, and usually walking two steps ahead of their companions; the women plainly flustered and hurried, and invariably buttoning gloves or gathering up trailing ends of scarfs or boas.
The crowd was thickening fast, now, and Billy's eyes were alert. Children were appearing, and young women walking alone. One of these wore a bunch of violets. Billy gave her a second glance. Then she saw a pink—but it was on the coat lapel of a tall young fellow with a brown beard; so with a slight frown she looked beyond down the line.
Old men came now, and old women; fleshy women, and women with small children and babies. Couples came, too—dawdling couples, plainly newly married: the men were not two steps ahead, and the women's gloves were buttoned and their furs in place.
Gradually the line thinned, and soon there were left only an old man with a cane, and a young woman with three children. Yet nowhere had Billy seen a girl wearing a white carnation, and walking alone.
With a deeper frown on her face Billy turned and looked about her. She thought that somewhere in the crowd she had missed Mary Jane, and that she would find her now, standing near. But there was no one standing near except the good-looking young fellow with the little pointed brown beard, who, as Billy noticed a second time, was wearing a white carnation.
As she glanced toward him, their eyes met. Then, to Billy's unbounded amazement, the man advanced with uplifted hat.
“I beg your pardon, but is not this—Miss Neilson?”
Billy drew back with just a touch of hauteur.
“Y-yes,” she murmured.
“I thought so—yet I was expecting to see you with Aunt Hannah. I am M. J. Arkwright, Miss Neilson.”
For a brief instant Billy stared dazedly.
“You don't mean—Mary Jane?” she gasped.
“I'm afraid I do.” His lips twitched.
“But I thought—we were expecting—” She stopped helplessly. For one more brief instant she stared; then, suddenly, a swift change came to her face. Her eyes danced.
“Oh—oh!” she chuckled. “How perfectly funny! Youhaveevened things up, after all. To think that Mary Jane should be a—” She paused and flashed almost angrily suspicious eyes into his face. “But minewas'Billy,'” she cried. “Your name isn't really—Mary Jane'?”
“I am often called that.” His brown eyes twinkled, but they did not swerve from their direct gaze into her own.
“But—” Billy hesitated, and turned her eyes away. She saw then that many curious glances were already being flung in her direction. The color in her cheeks deepened. With an odd little gesture she seemed to toss something aside. “Never mind,” she laughed a little hysterically. “If you'll pick up your bag, please, Mr. Mary Jane, and come with me. John and Peggy are waiting. Or—I forgot—you have a trunk, of course?”
The man raised a protesting hand.
“Thank you; but, Miss Neilson, really—I couldn't think of trespassing on your hospitality—now, you know.”
“But we—we invited you,” stammered Billy.
He shook his head.
“You invitedMissMary Jane.”
Billy bubbled into low laughter.
“I beg your pardon, but itisfunny,” she sighed. “You seeIcame once just the same way, and now to have the tables turned like this! What will Aunt Hannah say—what will everybody say? Come, I want them to begin—to say it,” she chuckled irrepressibly.
“Thank you, but I shall go to a hotel, of course. Later, if you'll be so good as to let me call, and explain—!”
“But I'm afraid Aunt Hannah will think—” Billy stopped abruptly. Some distance away she saw John coming toward them. She turned hurriedly to the man at her side. Her eyes still danced, but her voice was mockingly serious. “Really, Mr. Mary Jane, I'm afraid you'll have to come to dinner; then you can settle the rest with Aunt Hannah. John is almost upon us—andIdon't want to make explanations. Do you?”
“John,” she said airily to the somewhat dazed chauffeur (who had been told he was to meet a young woman), “take Mr. Arkwright's bag, please, and show him where Peggy is waiting. It will be five minutes, perhaps, before I can come—if you'll kindly excuse me,” she added to Arkwright, with a flashing glance from merry eyes. “I have some—telephoning to do.”
All the way to the telephone booth Billy was trying to bring order out of the chaos of her mind; but all the way, too, she was chuckling.
“To think that this thing should have happened tome!” she said, almost aloud. “And here I am telephoning just like Uncle William—Bertram said Uncle Williamdidtelephone aboutme!”
In due course Billy had Aunt Hannah at the other end of the wire.
“Aunt Hannah, listen. I'd never have believed it, but it's happened. Mary Jane is—a man.”
Billy heard a dismayed gasp and a muttered “Oh, my grief and conscience!” then a shaking “Wha-at?”
“I say, Mary Jane is a man.” Billy was enjoying herself hugely.
“Ama-an!”
“Yes; a great big man with a brown beard. He's waiting now with John and I must go.”
“But, Billy, I don't understand,” chattered an agitated voice over the line. “He—he called himself 'Mary Jane.' He hasn't any business to be a big man with a brown beard! What shall we do? We don't want a big man with a brown beard—here!”
Billy laughed roguishly.
“I don't know.Youasked him! How he will like that little blue room—Aunt Hannah!” Billy's voice turned suddenly tragic. “For pity's sake take out those curling tongs and hairpins, and the work-basket. I'dneverhear the last of it if he saw those, I know. He's just that kind!”
A half stifled groan came over the wire.
“Billy, he can't stay here.”
Billy laughed again.
“No, no, dear; he won't, I know. He says he's going to a hotel. But I had to bring him home to dinner; there was no other way, under the circumstances. He won't stay. Don't you worry. But good-by. I must go.Remember those curling tongs!” And the receiver clicked sharply against the hook.
In the automobile some minutes later, Billy and Mr. M. J. Arkwright were speeding toward Corey Hill. It was during a slight pause in the conversation that Billy turned to her companion with a demure:
“I telephoned Aunt Hannah, Mr. Arkwright. I thought she ought to be—warned.”
“You are very kind. What did she say?—if I may ask.”
There was a brief moment of hesitation before Billy answered.
“She said you called yourself 'Mary Jane,' and that you hadn't any business to be a big man with a brown beard.”
Arkwright laughed.
“I'm afraid I owe Aunt Hannah an apology,” he said. He hesitated, glanced admiringly at the glowing, half-averted face near him, then went on decisively. He wore the air of a man who has set the match to his bridges. “I signed both letters 'M. J. Arkwright,' but in the first one I quoted a remark of a friend, and in that remark I was addressed as 'Mary Jane.' I did not know but Aunt Hannah knew of the nickname.” (Arkwright was speaking a little slowly now, as if weighing his words.) “But when she answered, I saw that she did not; for, from something she said, I realized that she thought I was a real Mary Jane. For the joke of the thing I let it pass. But—if she noticed my letter carefully, she saw that I did not accept your kind invitation to give 'Mary Jane' a home.”
“Yes, we noticed that,” nodded Billy, merrily. “But we didn't think you meant it. You see we pictured you as a shy young thing. But, really,” she went on with a low laugh, “you see your coming as a masculine 'Mary Jane' was particularly funny—for me; for, though perhaps you didn't know it, I came once to this very same city, wearing a pink, and was expected to be Billy, a boy. And only to-day a lady warned me that your coming might even things up. But I didn't believe it would—a Mary Jane!”
Arkwright laughed. Again he hesitated, and seemed to be weighing his words.
“Yes, I heard about that coming of yours. I might almost say—that's why I—let the mistake pass in Aunt Hannah's letter,” he said.
Billy turned with reproachful eyes.
“Oh, how could—you? But then—it was a temptation!” She laughed suddenly. “What sinful joy you must have had watching me hunt for 'Mary Jane.'”
“I didn't,” acknowledged the other, with unexpected candor. “I felt—ashamed. And when I saw you were there alone without Aunt Hannah, I came very near not speaking at all—until I realized that that would be even worse, under the circumstances.”
“Of course it would,” smiled Billy, brightly; “so I don't see but I shall have to forgive you, after all. And here we are at home, Mr. Mary Jane. By the way, what did you say that 'M. J.' did stand for?” she asked, as the car came to a stop.
The man did not seem to hear; at least he did not answer. He was helping his hostess to alight. A moment later a plainly agitated Aunt Hannah—her gray shawl topped with a huge black one—opened the door of the house.
At ten minutes before six on the afternoon of Arkwright's arrival, Billy came into the living-room to welcome the three Henshaw brothers, who, as was frequently the case, were dining at Hillside.
Bertram thought Billy had never looked prettier than she did this afternoon with the bronze sheen of her pretty house gown bringing out the bronze lights in her dark eyes and in the soft waves of her beautiful hair. Her countenance, too, carried a peculiar something that the artist's eye was quick to detect, and that the artist's fingers tingled to put on canvas.
“Jove! Billy,” he said low in her ear, as he greeted her, “I wish I had a brush in my hand this minute. I'd have a 'Face of a Girl' that would be worth while!”
Billy laughed and dimpled her appreciation; but down in her heart she was conscious of a vague unrest. Billy wished, sometimes, that she did not so often seem to Bertram—a picture.
She turned to Cyril with outstretched hand.
“Oh, yes, Marie's coming,” she smiled in answer to the quick shifting of Cyril's eyes to the hall doorway. “And Aunt Hannah, too. They're up-stairs.”
“And Mary Jane?” demanded William, a little anxiously
“Will's getting nervous,” volunteered Bertram, airily. “He wants to see Mary Jane. You see we've told him that we shall expect him to see that she doesn't bother us four too much, you know. He's expected always to remove her quietly but effectually, whenever he sees that she is likely to interrupt a tête-á-tête. Naturally, then, Will wants to see Mary Jane.”
Billy began to laugh hysterically. She dropped into a chair and raised both her hands, palms outward.
“Don't, don't—please don't!” she choked, “or I shall die. I've had all I can stand, already.”
“All you can stand?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is she so—impossible?” This last was from Bertram, spoken softly, and with a hurried glance toward the hall.
Billy dropped her hands and lifted her head. By heroic effort she pulled her face into sobriety—all but her eyes—and announced:
“Mary Jane is—a man.”
“Wha-at?”
“Aman!”
“Billy!”
Three masculine forms sat suddenly erect.
“Yes. Oh, Uncle William, I know now just how you felt—I know, I know,” gurgled Billy, incoherently. “There he stood with his pink just as I did—only he had a brown beard, and he didn't have Spunk—and I had to telephone to prepare folks, just as you did. And the room—the room! I fixed the room, too,” she babbled breathlessly, “only I had curling tongs and hair pins in it instead of guns and spiders!”
“Child, child! whatareyou talking about?” William's face was red.
“Aman!—Mary Jane!” Cyril was merely cross.
“Billy, what does this mean?” Bertram had grown a little white.
Billy began to laugh again, yet she was plainly trying to control herself.
“I'll tell you. I must tell you. Aunt Hannah is keeping him up-stairs so I can tell you,” she panted. “But it was so funny, when I expected a girl, you know, to see him with his brown beard, and he was so tall and big! And, of course, it made me think howIcame, and was a girl when you expected a boy; and Mrs. Carleton had just said to-day that maybe this girl would even things up. Oh, it was so funny!”
“Billy, my-my dear,” remonstrated Uncle William, mildly.
“But whatishis name?” demanded Cyril.
“Did the creature sign himself 'Mary Jane'?” exploded Bertram.
“I don't know his name, except that it's 'M. J.'—and that's how he signed the letters. But heiscalled 'Mary Jane' sometimes, and in the letter he quoted somebody's speech—I've forgotten just how—but in it he was called 'Mary Jane,' and, of course, Aunt Hannah took him for a girl,” explained Billy, grown a little more coherent now.
“Didn't he write again?” asked William.
“Yes.”
“Well, why didn't he correct the mistake, then?” demanded Bertram.
Billy chuckled.
“He didn't want to, I guess. He thought it was too good a joke.”
“Joke!” scoffed Cyril.
“But, see here, Billy, he isn't going to live here—now?” Bertram's voice was almost savage.
“Oh, no, he isn't going to live here—now,” interposed smooth tones from the doorway.
“Mr.—Arkwright!” breathed Billy, confusedly.
Three crimson-faced men sprang to their feet. The situation, for a moment, threatened embarrassed misery for all concerned; but Arkwright, with a cheery smile, advanced straight toward Bertram, and held out a friendly hand.
“The proverbial fate of listeners,” he said easily; “but I don't blame you at all. No, 'he' isn't going to live here,” he went on, grasping each brother's hand in turn, as Billy murmured faint introductions; “and what is more, he hereby asks everybody's pardon for the annoyance his little joke has caused. He might add that he's heartily-ashamed of himself, as well; but if any of you—” Arkwright turned to the three tall men still standing by their chairs—“if any of you had suffered what he has at the hands of a swarm of youngsters for that name's sake, you wouldn't blame him for being tempted to get what fun he could out of Mary Jane—if there ever came a chance!”
Naturally, after this, there could be nothing stiff or embarrassing. Billy laughed in relief, and motioned Mr. Arkwright to a seat near her. William said “Of course, of course!” and shook hands again. Bertram and Cyril laughed shamefacedly and sat down. Somebody said: “But what does the 'M. J.' stand for, anyhow?” Nobody answered this, however; perhaps because Aunt Hannah and Marie appeared just then in the doorway.
Dinner proved to be a lively meal. In the newcomer, Bertram met his match for wit and satire; and “Mr. Mary Jane,” as he was promptly called by every one but Aunt Hannah, was found to be a most entertaining guest.
After dinner somebody suggested music.
Cyril frowned, and got up abruptly. Still frowning, he turned to a bookcase near him and began to take down and examine some of the books.
Bertram twinkled and glanced at Billy.
“Which is it, Cyril?” he called with cheerful impertinence; “stool, piano, or audience that is the matter to-night?”
Only a shrug from Cyril answered.
“You see,” explained Bertram, jauntily, to Arkwright, whose eyes were slightly puzzled, “Cyril never plays unless the piano and the pedals and the weather and your ears and my watch and his fingers are just right!”
“Nonsense!” scorned Cyril, dropping his book and walking back to his chair. “I don't feel like playing to-night; that's all.”
“You see,” nodded Bertram again.
“I see,” bowed Arkwright with quiet amusement.
“I believe—Mr. Mary Jane—sings,” observed Billy, at this point, demurely.
“Why, yes, of course,” chimed in Aunt Hannah with some nervousness. “That's what she—I mean he—was coming to Boston for—to study music.”
Everybody laughed.
“Won't you sing, please?” asked Billy. “Can you—without your notes? I have lots of songs if you want them.”
For a moment—but only a moment—Arkwright hesitated; then he rose and went to the piano.
With the easy sureness of the trained musician his fingers dropped to the keys and slid into preliminary chords and arpeggios to test the touch of the piano; then, with a sweetness and purity that made every listener turn in amazed delight, a well-trained tenor began the “Thro' the leaves the night winds moving,” of Schubert's Serenade.
Cyril's chin had lifted at the first tone. He was listening now with very obvious pleasure. Bertram, too, was showing by his attitude the keenest appreciation. William and Aunt Hannah, resting back in their chairs, were contentedly nodding their approval to each other. Marie in her corner was motionless with rapture. As to Billy—Billy was plainly oblivious of everything but the song and the singer. She seemed scarcely to move or to breathe till the song's completion; then there came a low “Oh, how beautiful!” through her parted lips.
Bertram, looking at her, was conscious of a vague irritation.
“Arkwright, you're a lucky dog,” he declared almost crossly. “I wish I could sing like that!”
“I wish I could paint a 'Face of a Girl,'” smiled the tenor as he turned from the piano.
“Oh, but, Mr. Arkwright, don't stop,” objected Billy, springing to her feet and going to her music cabinet by the piano. “There's a little song of Nevin's I want you to sing. There, here it is. Just let me play it for you.” And she slipped into the place the singer had just left.
It was the beginning of the end. After Nevin came De Koven, and after De Koven, Gounod. Then came Nevin again, Billy still playing the accompaniment. Next followed a duet. Billy did not consider herself much of a singer, but her voice was sweet and true, and not without training. It blended very prettily with the clear, pure tenor.
William and Aunt Hannah still smiled contentedly in their chairs, though Aunt Hannah had reached for the pink shawl near her—the music had sent little shivers down her spine. Cyril, with Marie, had slipped into the little reception-room across the hall, ostensibly to look at some plans for a house, although—as everybody knew—they were not intending to build for a year.
Bertram, still sitting stiffly erect in his chair, was not conscious of a vague irritation now. He was conscious of a very real, and a very decided one—an irritation that was directed against himself, against Billy, and against this man, Arkwright; but chiefly against music,per se. He hated music. He wished he could sing. He wondered how long it took to teach a man to sing, anyhow; and he wondered if a man could sing—who never had sung.
At this point the duet came to an end, and Billy and her guest left the piano. Almost at once, after this, Arkwright made his very graceful adieus, and went off with his suit-case to the hotel where, as he had informed Aunt Hannah, his room was already engaged.
William went home then, and Aunt Hannah went up-stairs. Cyril and Marie withdrew into a still more secluded corner to look at their plans, and Bertram found himself at last alone with Billy. He forgot, then, in the blissful hour he spent with her before the open fire, how he hated music; though he did say, just before he went home that night:
“Billy, how long does it take—to learn to sing?”
“Why, I don't know, I'm sure,” replied Billy, abstractedly; then, with sudden fervor: “Oh, Bertram, hasn't Mr. Mary Jane a beautiful voice?”
Bertram wished then he had not asked the question; but all he said was:
“'Mr. Mary Jane,' indeed! What an absurd name!”
“But doesn't he sing beautifully?”
“Eh? Oh, yes, he sings all right,” said Bertram's tongue. Bertram's manner said: “Oh, yes, anybody can sing.”