The old man picked up the sleepy cat and went down-stairs. A little later Billy heard his quiet steps coming back through the hall and ascending the stairs. She listened until from away at the top of the house she heard his door close. Then she drew a long breath.
Ten o"clock--after ten o"clock, and Bertram not there yet! And was this what he called dinner? Did one eat, then, till ten o"clock, when one dined with one"s friends?
Billy was angry now--very angry. She was too angry to be reasonable.
This thing that her husband had done seemed monstrous to her, smarting, as she was, under the sting of hurt pride and grieved loneliness--the state of mind into which she had worked herself. No longer now did she wish to be gay when her husband came. No longer did she even pretend to a.s.sume indifference. Bertram had done wrong. He had been unkind, cruel, thoughtless, inconsiderate of her comfort and happiness. Furthermore he _did not_ love her as well as she did him or he never, never could have done it! She would let him see, when he came, just how hurt and grieved she was--and how disappointed, too.
Billy was walking the floor now, back and forth, back and forth.
Half-past ten came, then eleven. As the eleven long strokes reverberated through the silent house Billy drew in her breath and held it suspended.
A new look came to her eyes. A growing terror crept into them and culminated in a frightened stare at the clock.
Billy ran then to the great outer door and pulled it open. A cold wind stung her face, and caused her to shut the door quickly. Back and forth she began to pace the floor again; but in five minutes she had run to the door once more. This time she wore a heavy coat of Bertram"s which she caught up as she pa.s.sed the hall-rack.
Out on to the broad top step Billy hurried, and peered down the street.
As far as she could see not a person was in sight. Across the street in the Public Garden the wind stirred the gray tree-branches and set them to casting weird shadows on the bare, frozen ground. A warning something behind her sent Billy scurrying into the house just in time to prevent the heavy door"s closing and shutting her out, keyless, in the cold.
Half-past eleven came, and again Billy ran to the door. This time she put the floor-mat against the casing so that the door could not close.
Once more she peered wildly up and down the street, and across into the deserted, wind-swept Garden.
There was only terror now in Billy"s face. The anger was all gone. In Billy"s mind there was not a shadow of doubt--something had happened to Bertram.
Bertram was ill--hurt--dead! And he was so good, so kind, so n.o.ble; such a dear, dear husband! If only she could see him once. If only she could ask his forgiveness for those wicked, unkind, accusing thoughts. If only she could tell him again that she did love him. If only--
Far down the street a step rang sharply on the frosty air. A masculine figure was hurrying toward the house. Retreating well into the shadow of the doorway, Billy watched it, her heart pounding against her side in great suffocating throbs. Nearer and nearer strode the approaching figure until Billy had almost sprung to meet it with a glad cry--almost, but not quite; for the figure neither turned nor paused, but marched straight on--and Billy saw then, under the arc light, a brown-bearded man who was not Bertram at all.
Three times during the next few minutes did the waiting little bride on the doorstep watch with palpitating yearning a shadowy form appear, approach--and pa.s.s by. At the third heart-breaking disappointment, Billy wrung her hands helplessly.
"I don"t see how there can be--so many--utterly _useless_ people in the world!" she choked. Then, thoroughly chilled and sick at heart, she went into the house and closed the door.
Once again, back and forth, back and forth, Billy took up her weary vigil. She still wore the heavy coat. She had forgotten to take it off.
Her face was pitifully white and drawn. Her eyes were wild. One of her hands was nervously caressing the rough sleeve of the coat as it hung from her shoulder.
One--two--three--
Billy gave a sharp cry and ran into the hall.
Yes, it was twelve o"clock. And now, always, all the rest of the dreary, useless hours that that clock would tick away through an endless existence, she would have to live--without Bertram. If only she could see him once more! But she could not. He was dead. He must be dead, now.
Here it was twelve o"clock, and--
There came a quick step, the click of a key in the lock, then the door swung back and Bertram, big, strong, and merry-eyed, stood before her.
"Well, well, hullo," he called jovially. "Why, Billy, what"s the matter?"
he broke off, in quite a different tone of voice.
And then a curious thing happened. Billy, who, a minute before, had been seeing only a dear, n.o.ble, adorable, _lost_ Bertram, saw now suddenly only the man that had stayed _happily_ till midnight with two friends, while she--she--
"Matter! Matter!" exclaimed Billy sharply, then. "Is this what you call staying to dinner, Bertram Henshaw?"
Bertram stared. A slow red stole to his forehead. It was his first experience of coming home to meet angry eyes that questioned his behavior--and he did not like it. He had been, perhaps, a little conscience-smitten when he saw how late he had stayed; and he had intended to say he was sorry, of course. But to be thus sharply called to account for a perfectly innocent good time with a couple of friends--! To come home and find Billy making a ridiculous scene like this--! He--he would not stand for it! He--
Bertram"s lips snapped open. The angry retort was almost spoken when something in the piteously quivering chin and white, drawn face opposite stopped it just in time.
"Why, Billy--darling!" he murmured instead.
It was Billy"s turn to change. All the anger melted away before the dismayed tenderness in those dear eyes and the grieved hurt in that dear voice.
"Well, you--you--I--" Billy began to cry.
It was all right then, of course, for the next minute she was crying on Bertram"s big, broad shoulder; and in the midst of broken words, kisses, gentle pats, and inarticulate croonings, the Big, Bad Quarrel, that had been all ready to materialize, faded quite away into nothingness.
"I didn"t have such an awfully good time, anyhow," avowed Bertram, when speech became rational. "I"d rather have been home with you."
"Nonsense!" blinked Billy, valiantly. "Of course you had a good time; and it was perfectly right you should have it, too! And I--I hope you"ll have it again."
"I sha"n"t," emphasized Bertram, promptly, "--not and leave you!"
Billy regarded him with adoring eyes.
"I"ll tell you; we"ll have "em come here," she proposed gayly.
"Sure we will," agreed Bertram.
"Yes; sure we will," echoed Billy, with a contented sigh. Then, a little breathlessly, she added: "Anyhow, I"ll know--where you are. I won"t think you"re--dead!"
"You--blessed--little-goose!" scolded Bertram, punctuating each word with a kiss.
Billy drew a long sigh.
"If this is a quarrel I"m going to have them often," she announced placidly.
"Billy!" The young husband was plainly aghast.
"Well, I am--because I like the making-up," dimpled Billy, with a mischievous twinkle as she broke from his clasp and skipped ahead up the stairway.
CHAPTER VIII. BILLY CULTIVATES A "COMFORTABLE INDIFFERENCE"
The next morning, under the uncompromising challenge of a bright sun, Billy began to be uneasily suspicious that she had been just a bit unreasonable and exacting the night before. To make matters worse she chanced to run across a newspaper criticism of a new book bearing the ominous t.i.tle: "When the Honeymoon Wanes A Talk to Young Wives."
Such a t.i.tle, of course, attracted her supersensitive attention at once; and, with a curiously faint feeling, she picked up the paper and began to read.
As the most of the criticism was taken up with quotations from the book, it was such sentences as these that met her startled eyes:
"Perhaps the first test comes when the young wife awakes to the realization that while her husband loves her very much, he can still make plans with his old friends which do not include herself.... Then is when the foolish wife lets her husband see how hurt she is that he can want to be with any one but herself.... Then is when the husband--used all his life to independence, perhaps--begins to chafe under these new bonds that hold him so fast.... No man likes to be held up at the end of a threatened scene and made to give an account of himself.... Before a woman has learned to cultivate a comfortable indifference to her husband"s comings and goings, she is apt to be tyrannical and exacting."