``Oh, come, come, Billy,'' expostulated the man. ``I'm not going to have you talk like that about _my wife!_''
``But I did--the book said I did,'' wailed Billy.
``The book? Good heavens! Are there any books in this, too?'' demanded Bertram.
``Yes, the same one; the--the `Talks to Young Wives,' '' nodded Billy. And then, because some things had grown small to them, and some others great, they both laughed happily.
But even this was not quite all; for one evening, very shyly, Billy brought out the chessboard.
``Of course I can't play well,'' she faltered;``and maybe you don't want to play with me at all.''
But Bertram, when he found out why she had learned, was very sure he did want very much to play with her.
Billy did not beat, of course. But she did several times experience--for a few blissful minutes --the pleasure of seeing Bertram sit motionless, studying the board, because of a move she had made. And though, in the end, her king was ignominiously trapped with not an unguarded square upon which to set his poor distracted foot, the memory of those blissful minutes when she had made Bertram ``stare'' more than paid for the final checkmate.
By the middle of June the baby was well enough to be taken to the beach, and Bertram was so fortunate as to secure the same house they had occupied before. Once again William went down in Maine for his fishing trip, and the Strata was closed. In the beach house Bertram was painting industriously--with his left hand.
Almost he was beginning to feel Billy's enthusiasm.
Almost he was believing that he _was_ doing good work. It was not the ``Face of a Girl,'' now.
It was the face of a baby: smiling, laughing, even crying, sometimes; at other times just gazing straight into your eyes with adorable soberness.
Bertram still went into Boston twice a week for treatment, though the treatment itself had changed. The great surgeon had sent him to still another specialist.
``There's a chance--though perhaps a small one,'' he had said. ``I'd like you to try it, anyway.''
As the summer advanced, Bertram thought sometimes that he could see a slight improvement in his injured arm; but he tried not to think too much about this. He had thought the same thing before, only to be disappointed in the end. Besides, he was undeniably interested just now in seeing if he _could_ paint with his left hand. Billy was so sure, and she had said that she would be prouder than ever of him, if he could--and he would like to make Billy proud! Then, too, there was the baby--he had no idea a baby could be so interesting to paint.
He was not sure but that he was going to like to paint babies even better than he had liked to paint his ``Face of a Girl'' that had brought him his first fame.
In September the family returned to the Strata.
The move was made a little earlier this year on account of Alice Greggory's wedding.
Alice was to be married in the pretty living-room at the Annex, just where Billy herself had been married a few short years before; and Billy had great plans for the wedding--not all of which she was able to carry out, for Alice, like Marie before her, had very strong objections to being placed under too great obligations.
``And you see, really, anyway,'' she told Billy,``I owe the whole thing to you, to begin with--even my husband.''
``Nonsense! Of course you don't,'' disputed Billy.
``But I do. If it hadn't been for you I should never have found him again, and of _course_ Ishouldn't have had this dear little home to be married in. And I never could have left mother if she hadn't had Aunt Hannah and the Annex which means you. And if I hadn't found Mr.
Arkwright, I might never have known how--how I could go back to my old home (as I am going on my honeymoon trip), and just know that every one of my old friends who shakes hands with me isn't pitying me now, because I'm my father's daughter. And that means you; for you see I never would have known that my father's name was cleared if it hadn't been for you.
And--''
``Oh, Alice, please, please,'' begged Billy, laughingly raising two protesting hands. ``Why don't you say that it's to me you owe just breathing, and be done with it?''
``Well, I will, then,'' avowed Alice, doggedly.
``And it's true, too, for, honestly, my dear, Idon't believe I would have been breathing to-day, nor mother, either, if you hadn't found us that morning, and taken us out of those awful rooms.''
``I? Never! You wouldn't let me take you out,'' laughed Billy. ``You proud little thing!
Maybe _you've_ forgotten how you turned poor Uncle William and me out into the cold, cold world that morning, just because we dared to aspire to your Lowestoft teapot; but I haven't!''
``Oh, Billy, please, _don't_,'' begged Alice, the painful color staining her face. ``If you knew how I've hated myself since for the way I acted that day--and, really, you did take us away from there, you know.''
``No, I didn't. I merely found two good tenants for Mr. and Mrs. Delano,'' corrected Billy, with a sober face.
``Oh, yes, I know all about that,'' smiled Alice, affectionately; ``and you got mother and me here to keep Aunt Hannah company and teach Tommy Dunn; and you got Aunt Hannah here to keep us company and take care of Tommy Dunn; and you got Tommy Dunn here so Aunt Hannah and we could have somebody to teach and take care of; and, as for the others,--''
But Billy put her hands to her ears and fled.
The wedding was to be on the fifteenth. From the West Kate wrote that of course it was none of her affairs, particularly as neither of the interested parties was a relation, but still she should think that for a man in Mr. Arkwright's position, nothing but a church wedding would do at all, as, of course, he did, in a way, belong to the public. Alice, however, declared that perhaps he did belong to the public, when he was Don Somebody-or-other in doublet and hose; but when he was just plain Michael Jeremiah Arkwright in a frock coat he was hers, and she did not propose to make a Grand Opera show of her wedding.
