Some in the line shuffled restlessly; some stood rigidly quiet. One had brought a camp stool; many were seated on the steps. Beyond, where the line pa.s.sed an open lot, a wooden fence afforded a convenient prop. One read a book, another a paper. Three were studying what was probably the score of the symphony or of the concerto they expected to hear that afternoon.
A few did not appear to mind the biting wind, but most of them, by turned-up coat-collars or bent heads, testified to the contrary. Not far from Billy a woman nibbled a sandwich furtively, while beyond her a group of girls were hilariously merry over four triangles of pie which they held up where all might see.
Many of the faces were youthful, happy, and alert with antic.i.p.ation; but others carried a wistfulness and a weariness that made Billy"s heart ache. Her eyes, indeed, filled with quick tears. Later she turned to go, and it was then that she saw in the line a face that she knew--a face that drooped with such a white misery of spent strength that she hurried straight toward it with a low cry.
"Miss Greggory!" she exclaimed, when she reached the girl. "You look actually ill. Are you ill?"
For a brief second only dazed questioning stared from the girl"s blue-gray eyes. Billy knew when the recognition came, for she saw the painful color stain the white face red.
"Thank you, no. I am not ill, Miss Neilson," said the girl, coldly.
"But you look so tired out!"
"I have been standing here some time; that is all."
Billy threw a hurried glance down the far-reaching line that she knew had formed since the girl"s two tired feet had taken their first position.
"But you must have come--so early! It isn"t twelve o"clock yet," she faltered.
A slight smile curved Alice Greggory"s lips.
"Yes, it was early," she rejoined a little bitterly; "but it had to be, you know. I wanted to hear the music; and with this soloist, and this weather, I knew that many others--would want to hear the music, too."
"But you look so white! How much longer--when will they let you in?"
demanded Billy, raising indignant eyes to the huge, gray-pillared building before her, much as if she would pull down the walls if she could, and make way for this tired girl at her side.
Miss Greggory"s thin shoulders rose and fell in an expressive shrug.
"Half-past one."
Billy gave a dismayed cry.
"Half-past one--almost two hours more! But, Miss Greggory, you can"t--how can you stand it till then? You"ve shivered three times since I came, and you look as if you were going to faint away."
Miss Greggory shook her head.
"It is nothing, really," she insisted. "I am quite well. It is only--I didn"t happen to feel like eating much breakfast this morning; and that, with no luncheon--" She let a gesture finish her sentence.
"No luncheon! Why--oh, you couldn"t leave your place, of course,"
frowned Billy.
"No, and"--Alice Greggory lifted her head a little proudly--"I do not care to eat--here." Her scornful eyes were on one of the pieces of pie down the line--no longer a triangle.
"Of course not," agreed Billy, promptly. She paused, frowned, and bit her lip. Suddenly her face cleared. "There! the very thing," she exulted. "You shall have my ticket this afternoon, Miss Greggory, then you won"t have to stay here another minute. Meanwhile, there is an excellent restaurant--"
"Thank you--no. I couldn"t do that," cut in the other, sharply, but in a low voice.
"But you"ll take my ticket," begged Billy.
Miss Greggory shook her head.
"Certainly not."
"But I want you to, please. I shall be very unhappy if you don"t,"
grieved Billy.
The other made a peremptory gesture.
"_I_ should be very unhappy if I did," she said with cold emphasis.
"Really, Miss Neilson," she went on in a low voice, throwing an apprehensive glance at the man ahead, who was apparently absorbed in his newspaper, "I"m afraid I shall have to ask you to let me go on in my own way. You are very kind, but there is nothing you can do; nothing. You were very kind, too, of course, to send the book and the flowers to mother at Christmas; but--"
"Never mind that, please," interrupted Billy, hurriedly. Billy"s head was lifted now. Her eyes were no longer pleading. Her round little chin looked square and determined. "If you simply will not take my ticket this afternoon, you _must_ do this. Go to some restaurant near here and get a good luncheon--something that will sustain you. I will take your place here."
"_Miss Neilson!_"
Billy smiled radiantly. It was the first time she had ever seen Alice Greggory"s haughtily cold reserve break into anything like naturalness--the astonished incredulity of that "Miss Neilson!" was plainly straight from the heart; so, too, were the amazed words that followed.
"_You_--will stand _here?_"
"Certainly; I will keep your place. Don"t worry. You sha"n"t lose it."
Billy spoke with a smiling indifference that was meant to convey the impression that standing in line for a twenty-five-cent seat was a daily habit of hers. "There"s a restaurant only a little way--right down there," she finished. And before the dazed Alice Greggory knew quite what was happening she found herself outside the line, and the other in her place.
"But, Miss Neilson, I can"t--you mustn"t--" she stammered; then, because of something in the unyieldingness of the square young chin above the sealskin coat, and because she could not (she knew) use actual force to drag the owner of that chin out of the line, she bowed her head in acquiescence.
"Well, then--I will, long enough for some coffee and maybe a sandwich.
And--thank you," she choked, as she turned and hurried away.
Billy drew the deep breath of one who has triumphed after long struggles--but the breath broke off short in a gasp of dismay: coming straight up the Avenue toward her was the one person in the world Billy wished least to see at that moment--Bertram Henshaw. Billy remembered then that she had twice lately heard her lover speak of calling at the Boston Opera House concerning a commission to paint an ideal head to represent "Music" for some decorative purpose. The Opera House was only a short distance up the Avenue. Doubtless he was on his way there now.
He was very near by this time, and Billy held her breath suspended.
There was a chance, of course, that he might not notice her; and Billy was counting on that chance--until a gust of wind whirled a loose half-sheet of newspaper from the hands of the man in front of her, and naturally attracted Bertram"s eyes to its vicinity--and to hers. The next moment he was at her side and his dumfounded but softly-breathed "_Billy!_" was in her ears.
Billy bubbled into low laughter--there were such a lot of funny situations in the world, and of them all this one was about the drollest, she thought.
"Yes, I know," she gurgled. "You don"t have to say it-your face is saying even more than your tongue _could!_ This is just for a girl I know. I"m keeping her place."
Bertram frowned. He looked as if he were meditating picking Billy up and walking off with her.
"But, Billy," he protested just above his breath, "this isn"t sugarplums nor frosting; it"s plain suicide--standing out in this wind like this! Besides--" He stopped with an angrily despairing glance at her surroundings.
"Yes, I know," she nodded, a little soberly, understanding the look and answering that first; "it isn"t pleasant nor comfortable, in lots of ways--but _she"s_ had it all the morning. As for the cold--I"m as warm as toast. It won"t be long, anyway; she"s just gone to get something to eat. Then I"m going to May Henderson"s for luncheon."
Bertram sighed impatiently and opened his lips--only to close them with the words unsaid. There was nothing he could do, and he had already said too much, he thought, with a savage glance at the man ahead who still had enough of his paper left to serve for a pretence at reading. As Bertram could see, however, the man was not reading a word--he was too acutely conscious of the handsome young woman in the long sealskin coat behind him. Billy was already the cynosure of dozens of eyes, and Bertram knew that his own arrival on the scene had not lessened the interest of the owners of those eyes. He only hoped devoutly that no one in the line knew him ar Billy, and that no one quite knew what had happened. He did not wish to see himself and his fiancee the subject of inch-high headlines in some evening paper figuring as:
"Talented young composer and her famous artist lover take poor girl"s place in a twenty-five-cent ticket line."
He shivered at the thought.