begged fretfully. "I realize,
of course, that I'm a very unlikely subject for matrimony. You made me
understand that clearly enough last winter!"

"Last--winter?"

Cyril raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, I came to you for a little encouragement, and to make a
confession," he said. "I made the confession--but I didn't get the
encouragement."

Billy changed color. She thought she knew what he meant, but at the
same time she couldn't understand why he should wish to refer to that
conversation now.

"A--confession?" she repeated, hesitatingly.

"Yes. I told you that I'd begun to doubt my being such a woman-hater,
after all. I intimated that YOU'D begun the softening process, and that
then I'd found a certain other young woman who had--well, who had kept
up the good work."

"Oh!" cried Billy suddenly, with a peculiar intonation. "Oh-h!" Then she
laughed softly.

"Well, that was the confession," resumed Cyril. "Then I came out
flat-footed and said that I wanted to marry her--but there is where I
didn't get the encouragement!"

"Indeed! I'm afraid I wasn't very considerate," stammered Billy.

"No, you weren't," agreed Cyril, moodily. "I didn't know but now--" his
voice softened a little--"with this new happiness of yours and Bertram's
that--you might find a little encouragement for me."

"And I will," cried Billy, promptly. "Tell me about her."

"I did--last winter," reproached the man, "and you were sure I was
deceiving myself. You drew the gloomiest sort of picture of the misery I
would take with a wife."

"I did?" Billy was laughing very merrily now.

"Yes. You said she'd always be talking and laughing when I wanted to be
quiet, and that she'd want to drag me out to parties and plays when
I wanted to stay at home; and--oh, lots of things. I tried to make
it clear to you that--that this little woman wasn't that sort. But I
couldn't," finished Cyril, gloomily.

"But of course she isn't," declared Billy, with quick sympathy. "I--I
didn't know--WHAT--I was--talking about," she added with emphatic
distinctness. Then she smiled to think how little Cyril knew how very
true those words were. "Tell me about her," she begged again. "I
know she must be very lovely and brilliant, and of course a wonderful
musician. YOU couldn't choose any one else!"

To her surprise Cyril turned abruptly and began to play again. A nervous
little staccato scherzo fell from his fingers, but it dropped almost at
once into a quieter melody,