ortrait of Miss
Winthrop."
"Oh, Bertram!"
"It'll be 'Oh, Bertram!' then, dear, if it isn't a success," he sighed.
"I don't believe you realize yet what that thing is going to mean for
me."
"Well, I should think I might," retorted Billy, a little tremulously,
"after all I've heard about it. I should think _everybody_ knew you were
doing it, Bertram. Actually, I'm not sure Marie's scrub-lady won't ask
me some day how Mr. Bertram's picture is coming on!"
"That's the dickens of it, in a way," sighed Bertram, with a faint
smile. "I am amazed--and a little frightened, I'll admit--at the
universality of the interest. You see, the Winthrops have been pleased
to spread it, for one reason or another, and of course many already know
of the failures of Anderson and Fullam. That's why, if I should fail--"
"But you aren't going to fail," interposed the girl, resolutely.
"No, I know I'm not. I only said 'if,'" fenced the man, his voice not
quite steady.
"There isn't going to be any 'if,'" settled Billy. "Now tell me, when is
the exhibition?"
"March twentieth--the private view. Mr. Winthrop is not only willing,
but anxious, that I show it. I wasn't sure that he'd want me to--in
an exhibition. But it seems he does. His daughter says he has every
confidence in the portrait and wants everybody to see it."
"That's where he shows his good sense," declared Billy. Then, with
just a touch of constraint, she asked: "And how is the new, latest pose
coming on?"
"Very well, I think," answered Bertram, a little hesitatingly. "We've
had so many, many interruptions, though, that it is surprising how slow
it is moving. In the first place, Miss Winthrop is gone more than half
the time (she goes again to-morrow for a week!), and in this portrait
I'm not painting a stroke without my model before me. I mean to take no
chances, you see; and Miss Winthrop is perfectly willing to give me all
the sittings I wish for. Of course, if she hadn't changed the pose and
costume so many times, it would have been done long ago--and she knows
it."
"Of course--she knows it," murmured Billy, a little faintly, but with a
peculiar intonation in her voice.
"And so you see," sighed Bertram, "what the twentieth of March is going
to mean for me."
"It's going to mean a splendid triumph!" asserted Billy; and this time
her voice was not faint, and it carried only a ring of loyal confidence.
"You blessed comforter!" murmured Bertram, giving with his
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