With an assumedly gay little cry she sprang to her feet.

"Come, come, what are you two children chuckling over?" she demanded,
crossing the room abruptly. "Didn't you hear me say I wanted you to come
and sing a quartet?"

Billy blamed herself very much for what she called her stupidity in so
baldly summoning Arkwright's attention to Calderwell's devotion to Alice
Greggory. She declared that she ought to have known better, and she
asked herself if this were the way she was "furthering matters" between
Alice Greggory and Arkwright.

Billy was really seriously disturbed. She had never quite forgiven
herself for being so blind to Arkwright's feeling for herself during
those days when he had not known of her engagement to Bertram. She had
never forgotten, either, the painful scene when he had hopefully told
of his love, only to be met with her own shocked repudiation. For long
weeks after that, his face had haunted her. She had wished, oh,
so ardently, that she could do something in some way to bring him
happiness. When, therefore, it had come to her knowledge afterward that
he was frequently with his old friend, Alice Greggory, she had been so
glad. It was very easy then to fan hope into conviction that here, in
this old friend, he had found sweet balm for his wounded heart; and she
determined at once to do all that she could do to help. So very glowing,
indeed, was her eagerness in the matter, that it looked suspiciously as
if she thought, could she but bring this thing about, that old scores
against herself would be erased.

Billy told herself, virtuously, however, that not only for Arkwright did
she desire this marriage to take place, but for Alice Greggory. In the
very nature of things Alice would one day be left alone. She was poor,
and not very strong. She sorely needed the shielding love and care of
a good husband. What more natural than that her old-time friend and
almost-sweetheart, M. J. Arkwright, should be that good husband?

That really it was more Arkwright and less Alice that was being
considered, however, was proved when the devotion of Calderwell began to
be first suspected, then known for a fact. Billy's distress at this turn
of affairs indicated very plainly that it was not just a husband, but a
certain one particular husband that she desired for Alice Greggory. All
the more disturbed was she, therefore, when to-day, seeing her three
friends together again for the first time for some weeks, she disco