ice:

"I'm sorry, Billy, but I couldn't get the house at all."

"Couldn't get them! But you'd just been talking with them!"

"That's exactly it, probably. I had just telephoned, so they weren't
watching for the bell. Anyhow, I couldn't get them."

"Then you didn't get Delia at all!"

"Of course not."

"And Baby is still--all alone!"

"But he's all right, dear. Delia's keeping watch of him."

For a moment there was silence; then, with clear decisiveness came
Billy's voice.

"Bertram, I am going home."

"Billy!"

"I am."

"Billy, for heaven's sake don't be a silly goose! The play's half over
already. We'll soon be going, anyway."

Billy's lips came together in a thin little determined line.

"Bertram, I am going home now, please," she said. "You needn't come with
me; I can go alone."

Bertram said two words under his breath which it was just as well,
perhaps, that Billy--and the neighbors--did not hear; then he gathered
up their wraps and, with Billy, stalked out of the theater.

At home everything was found to be absolutely as it should be.
Bertram, Jr., was peacefully sleeping, and Delia, who had come up from
downstairs, was sewing in the next room.

"There, you see," observed Bertram, a little sourly.

Billy drew a long, contented sigh.

"Yes, I see; everything is all right. But that's exactly what I wanted
to do, Bertram, you know--to _see for myself_," she finished happily.

And Bertram, looking at her rapt face as she hovered over the baby's
crib, called himself a brute and a beast to mind _anything_ that could
make Billy look like that.

CHAPTER XXV. "SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT"

Bertram did not ask Billy very soon again to go to the theater. For some
days, indeed, he did not ask her to do anything. Then, one evening, he
did beg for some music.

"Billy, you haven't played to me or sung to me since I could remember,"
he complained. "I want some music."

Billy gave a merry laugh and wriggled her fingers experimentally.

"Mercy, Bertram! I don't believe I could play a note. You know I'm all
out of practice."

"But why _don't_ you practice?"

"Why, Bertram, I can't. In the first place I don't seem to have any time
except when Baby's asleep; and I can't play then-I'd wake him up."

Bertram sighed irritably, rose to his feet, and began to walk up and
down the room. He came to a pause at last, his eyes bent a trifle
disapprovingly on his wife.

"Billy, dear, _don't_ y