with Billy as he wished; but she
understood, of course, as did he, that his work must come first. He knew
that she tried to show him that she understood it. At the same time, he
could not help thinking, occasionally, that Billy did sometimes mind his
necessary absorption in his painting.

To himself Bertram owned that Billy was, in some ways, a puzzle to him.
Her conduct was still erratic at times. One day he would seem to be
everything to her; the next--almost nothing, judging by the ease with
which she relinquished his society and substituted that of some one
else: Arkwright, or Calderwell, for instance.

And that was another thing. Bertram was ashamed to hint even to himself
that he was jealous of either of those men. Surely, after what had
happened, after Billy's emphatic assertion that she had never loved any
one but himself, it would seem not only absurd, but disloyal, that
he should doubt for an instant Billy's entire devotion to him, and
yet--there were times when he wished he _could_ come home and not
always find Alice Greggory, Calderwell, Arkwright, or all three of them
strumming the piano in the drawing-room! At such times, always, though,
if he did feel impatient, he immediately demanded of himself: "Are you,
then, the kind of husband that begrudges your wife young companions of
her own age and tastes to help her while away the hours that you cannot
possibly spend with her yourself?"

This question, and the answer that his better self always gave to it,
were usually sufficient to send him into some florists for a bunch of
violets for Billy, or into a candy shop on a like atoning errand.

As to Billy--Billy, too, was busy these days chief of her concerns
being, perhaps, attention to that honeymoon of hers, to see that it did
not wane. At least, the most of her thoughts, and many of her actions,
centered about that object.

Billy had the book, now--the "Talk to Young Wives." For a time she had
worked with only the newspaper criticism to guide her; but, coming at
last to the conclusion that if a little was good, more must be better,
she had shyly gone into a bookstore one day and, with a pink blush, had
asked for the book. Since bringing it home she had studied assiduously
(though never if Bertram was near), keeping it well-hidden, when not in
use, in a remote corner of her desk.

There was a good deal in the book that Billy did not like, and there
were some statements that worried her; but yet there wa