What if they two should, in days to come, degenerate into just the ordinary, everyday married folk, whom she saw about her everywhere, and for whom just such horrid books as this must be written? It was unbelievable, unthinkable. And yet, that man had said--With a despairing sigh Billy picked up the paper once more and read carefully every word again.
When she had finished she stood soberly thoughtful, her eyes out of the window.
After all, it was nothing but the same old story.
She was exacting. She did want her husband's every thought. She _gloried_ in peering into every last recess of his mind if she had half a chance.
She was jealous of his work. She had almost hated his painting--at times. She had held him up with a threatened scene only the night before and demanded that he should give an account of himself. She had, very likely, been the clinging vine when she should have been the sturdy oak.
Very well, then. (Billy lifted her head and threw back her shoulders.) He should have no further cause for complaint. She would be an oak. She would cultivate that comfortable indifference to his comings and goings. She would brush up against other interests and personalities so as to be ``new'' and ``interesting'' to her husband. She would not be tyrannical, exacting, or jealous. She would not threaten scenes, nor peer into recesses. Whatever happened, she would not let Bertram begin to chafe against those bonds!
Having arrived at this heroic and (to her)eminently satisfactory state of mind, Billy turned from the window and fell to work on a piece of manuscript music.
`` `Brush up against other interests,' '' she admonished herself sternly, as she reached for her pen.
Theoretically it was beautiful; but practically--Billy began at once to be that oak. Not an hour after she had first seen the fateful notice of ``When the Honeymoon Wanes,'' Bertram's ring sounded at the door down-stairs.
Bertram always let himself in with his latchkey;but, from the first of Billy's being there, he had given a peculiar ring at the bell which would bring his wife flying to welcome him if she were anywhere in the house. To-day, when the bell sounded, Billy sprang as usual to her feet, with a joyous ``There's Bertram!'' But the next moment she fell back.
``Tut, tut, Billy Neilson Henshaw! Learn to cultivate a comfortable indifference to your husband's comings and goings,'' she whispered fiercely. Then she sat down and fell to work again.
A moment later she heard her husband's voice talking to some one--Pete, she surmised. ``Here?
You say she's here?'' Then she heard Bertram's quick step on the stairs. The next minute, very quietly, he came to her door.
``Ho!'' he ejaculated gayly, as she rose to receive his kiss. ``I thought I'd find you asleep, when you didn't hear my ring.''
Billy reddened a little.
``Oh, no, I wasn't asleep.''
``But you didn't hear--'' Bertram stopped abruptly, an odd look in his eyes. ``Maybe you did hear it, though,'' he corrected.
Billy colored more confusedly. The fact that she looked so distressed did not tend to clear Bertram's face.
``Why, of course, Billy, I didn't mean to insist on your coming to meet me,'' he began a little stiffly; but Billy interrupted him.
``Why, Bertram, I just love to go to meet you,''
she maintained indignantly. Then, remembering just in time, she amended: ``That is, I did love to meet you, until--'' With a sudden realization that she certainly had not helped matters any, she came to an embarrassed pause.
A puzzled frown showed on Bertram's face.
``You did love to meet me until--'' he repeated after her; then his face changed. ``Billy, you aren't--you _can't_ be laying up last night against me!'' he reproached her a little irritably.
``Last night? Why, of course not,'' retorted Billy, in a panic at the bare mention of the ``test'' which--according to ``When the Honeymoon Wanes''--was at the root of all her misery.
Already she thought she detected in Bertram's voice signs that he was beginning to chafe against those ``bonds.'' ``It is a matter of--of the utmost indifference to me what time you come home at night, my dear,'' she finished airily, as she sat down to her work again.
Bertram stared; then he frowned, turned on his heel and left the room. Bertram, who knew nothing of the ``Talk to Young Wives'' in the newspaper at Billy's feet, was surprised, puzzled, and just a bit angry.
Billy, left alone, jabbed her pen with such force against her paper that the note she was making became an unsightly blot.
``Well, if this is what that man calls being `comfortably indifferent,' I'd hate to try the _un_comfortable kind,'' she muttered with emphasis.
