ed it, at the last, do you suppose?" Billy was holding
her breath till he should answer.
The man got to his feet.
"Billy, don't--don't ask me," he begged. "Please don't let's talk of
it any more. It can't do any good! I just flunked--that's all. My
hand failed me. Maybe I tried too hard. Maybe I was tired. Maybe
something--troubled me. Never mind, dear, what it was. It can do no good
even to think of that--now. So just let's--drop it, please, dear," he
finished, his face working with emotion.
And Billy dropped it--so far as words were concerned; but she could not
drop it from her thoughts--specially after Kate's letter came.
Kate's letter was addressed to Billy, and it said, after speaking of
various other matters:
"And now about poor Bertram's failure." (Billy frowned. In Billy's
presence no one was allowed to say "Bertram's failure"; but a letter
has a most annoying privilege of saying what it pleases without let or
hindrance, unless one tears it up--and a letter destroyed unread remains
always such a tantalizing mystery of possibilities! So Billy let the
letter talk.) "Of course we have heard of it away out here. I do wish if
Bertram _must_ paint such famous people, he would manage to flatter them
up--in the painting, I mean, of course--enough so that it might pass for
a success!
"The technical part of all this criticism I don't pretend to understand
in the least; but from what I hear and read, he must, indeed, have made
a terrible mess of it, and of course I'm very sorry--and some surprised,
too, for usually he paints such pretty pictures!
"Still, on the other hand, Billy, I'm not surprised. William says that
Bertram has been completely out of fix over something, and as gloomy as
an owl, for weeks past; and of course, under those circumstances, the
poor boy could not be expected to do good work. Now William, being a
man, is not supposed to understand what the trouble is. But I, being a
woman, can see through a pane of glass when it's held right up before
me; and I can guess, of course, that a woman is at the bottom of it--she
always is!--and that you, being his special fancy at the moment" (Billy
almost did tear the letter now--but not quite), "are that woman.
"Now, Billy, you don't like such frank talk, of course; but, on the
other hand, I know you do not want to ruin the dear boy's career. So,
for heaven's sake, if you two have been having one of those quarrels
that lovers so delight in--do, pleas
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