gs when he had
so dear and loving a wife as Billy, and so fine and splendid a baby as
Bertram, Jr. He told himself, too, that very likely when they were back
in their own house again, and when motherhood was not so new to her,
Billy would not be so absorbed in the baby. She would return to her old
interest in her husband, her music, her friends, and her own personal
appearance. Meanwhile there was always, of course, for him, his
painting. So he would paint, accepting gladly what crumbs of attention
fell from the baby's table, and trust to the future to make Billy none
the less a mother, perhaps, but a little more the wife.

Just how confidently he was counting on this coming change, Bertram
hardly realized himself; but certainly the family was scarcely settled
at the Strata before the husband gayly proposed one evening that he and
Billy should go to the theater to see "Romeo and Juliet."

Billy was clearly both surprised and shocked.

"Why, Bertram, I can't--you know I can't!" she exclaimed reprovingly.

Bertram's heart sank; but he kept a brave front.

"Why not?"

"What a question! As if I'd leave Baby!"

"But, Billy, dear, you'd be gone less than three hours, and you say
Delia's the most careful of nurses."

Billy's forehead puckered into an anxious frown.

"I can't help it. Something might happen to him, Bertram. I couldn't be
happy a minute."

"But, dearest, aren't you _ever_ going to leave him?" demanded the young
husband, forlornly.

"Why, yes, of course, when it's reasonable and necessary. I went out to
the Annex yesterday afternoon. I was gone almost two whole hours."

"Well, did anything happen?"

"N-no; but then I telephoned, you see, several times, so I _knew_
everything was all right."

"Oh, well, if that's all you want, I could telephone, you know, between
every act," suggested Bertram, with a sarcasm that was quite lost on the
earnest young mother.

"Y-yes, you could do that, couldn't you?" conceded Billy; "and, of
course, I _haven't_ been anywhere much, lately."

"Indeed I could," agreed Bertram, with a promptness that carefully hid
his surprise at her literal acceptance of what he had proposed as a huge
joke. "Come, is it a go? Shall I telephone to see if I can get seats?"

"You think Baby'll surely be all right?"

"I certainly do."

"And you'll telephone home between every act?"

"I will." Bertram's voice sounded almost as if he were repeating the
marriage service.

"And we'l