``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. ``Iwant 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 Idon'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_ you wear anything but those wrapper things nowadays?'' he asked plaintively.
Again Billy laughed. But this time a troubled frown followed the laugh.
``I know, Bertram, I suppose they do look dowdy, sometimes,'' she confessed; ``but, you see, I hate to wear a really good dress--Baby rumples them up so; and I'm usually in a hurry to get to him mornings, and these are so easy to slip into, and so much more comfortable for me to handle him in!''
``Yes, of course, of course; I see,'' mumbled Bertram, listlessly taking up his walk again.
Billy, after a moment's silence, began to talk animatedly. Baby had done a wonderfully cunning thing that morning, and Billy had not had a chance yet to tell Bertram. Baby was growing more and more cunning anyway, these days, and there were several things she believed she had not told him; so she told them now.
Bertram listened politely, interestedly. He told himself that he _was_ interested, too. Of course he was interested in the doings of his own child! But he still walked up and down the room a little restlessly, coming to a halt at last by the window, across which the shade had not been drawn.
``Billy,'' he cried suddenly, with his old boyish eagerness, ``there's a glorious moon. Come on! Let's take a little walk--a real fellow-and-his-best-girl walk! Will you?''
``Mercy! dear, I couldn't,'' cried Billy springing to her feet. ``I'd love to, though, if I could,''
she added hastily, as she saw disappointment cloud her husband's face. ``But I told Delia she might go out. It isn't her regular evening, of course, but I told her I didn't mind staying with Baby a bit. So I'll have to go right up now.
She'll be going soon. But, dear, you go and take your walk. It'll do you good. Then you can come back and tell me all about it--only you must come in quietly, so not to wake the baby,''
she finished, giving her husband an affectionate kiss, as she left the room.
After a disconsolate five minutes of solitude, Bertram got his hat and coat and went out for his walk--but he told himself he did not expect to enjoy it.
Bertram Henshaw knew that the old rebellious jealousy of the summer had him fast in its grip.
He was heartily ashamed of himself, but he could not help it. He wanted Billy, and he wanted her then. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to tell her about a new portrait commission he had just obtained; and he wanted to ask her what she thought of the idea of a brand-new ``Face of a Girl'' for the Bohemian Ten Exhibition next March. He wanted--but then, what would be the use? She would listen, of course, but he would know by the very looks of her face that she would not be really thinking of what he was saying; and he would be willing to wager his best canvas that in the very first pause she would tell about the baby's newest tooth or latest toy. Not but that he liked to hear about the little fellow, of course; and not but that he was proud as Punch of him, too; but that he would like sometimes to hear Billy talk of something else. The sweetest melody in the world, if dinned into one's ears day and night, became something to be fled from.
And Billy ought to talk of something else, too!
Bertram, Jr., wonderful as he was, really was not the only thing in the world, or even the only baby;and other people--outsiders, their friends--had a right to expect that sometimes other matters might be considered--their own, for instance. But Billy seemed to have forgotten this.
No matter whether the subject of conversation had to do with the latest novel or a trip to Europe, under Billy's guidance it invariably led straight to Baby's Jack-and-Jill book, or to a perambulator journey in the Public Garden. If it had not been so serious, it would have been really funny the way all roads led straight to one goal. He himself, when alone with Billy, had started the most unusual and foreign subjects, sometimes, just to see if there were not somewhere a little bypath that did not bring up in his own nursery.
He never, however, found one.
