“I know, dear; I don't like that part. I wish they _would_ let me alone when I'm with you! But as for the operetta, it is really a good thing, dear, and you'll say so when you see it. It's going to be a great success--I can say that because my part is only a small one, you know. We shall make lots of money for the Home, too, I'm sure.”
“But you're wearing yourself all out with it, dear,” scowled Bertram.
“Nonsense! I like it; besides, when I'm doing this I'm not telephoning you to come and amuse me. Just think what a lot of extra time you have for your work!”
“But the _work_ may,” retorted Billy, showing all her dimples. “Never mind, though; it'll all be over after the twentieth. _This_ isn't an understudy like Marie's wedding, you know,” she finished demurely.
“Thank heaven for that!” Bertram had breathed fervently. But even as he said the words he grew sick with fear. What if, after all, this _were_ an understudy to what was to come later when Music, his rival, had really conquered?
Bertram knew that however secure might seem Billy's affection for himself, there was still in his own mind a horrid fear lest underneath that security were an unconscious, growing fondness for something he could not give, for some one that he was not--a fondness that would one day cause Billy to awake. As Bertram, in his morbid fancy pictured it, he realized only too well what that awakening would mean to himself.
The private view of the paintings and drawings of the Brush and Pencil Club on the evening of the fifteenth was a great success. Society sent its fairest women in frocks that were pictures in themselves. Art sent its severest critics and its most ardent devotees. The Press sent reporters that the World might know what Art and Society were doing, and how they did it.
Before the canvases signed with Bertram Henshaw's name there was always to be found an admiring group representing both Art and Society with the Press on the outskirts to report. William Henshaw, coming unobserved upon one such group, paused a moment to smile at the various more or less disconnected comments.
“I declare, she looks just like Blanche Payton!”
“Is this by the man that's painting Margy Winthrop's portrait?”