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Updated: June 13, 2025
It was a long minute before Billy spoke. "Not a bit of it. I don't see it at all," she declared with roguish merriment. "Moreover, I think that some day, some one of them will marry, Sir Doubtful!" Calderwell threw a quick glance into her eyes. Evidently something he saw there sent a swift shadow to his own. He waited a moment, then asked abruptly: "Billy, WON'T you marry me?"
During the brief, sickening moment of silence after the name had left his lips, Calderwell was conscious of a whimsical realization of the lights, music, and laughter all about him. "Well, I chose as safe a place as I could!" he was thinking. Then Arkwright spoke. "How long since you've been in correspondence with members of my family?" "Eh?" Arkwright laughed grimly.
"Oh-h!" said Billy, in a disappointed voice, falling quite back in her chair this time. "And so that's why I'm wanting especially just now to see the wheels go 'round," smiled Calderwell, a little wistfully. "Oh, I shall get over it, I suppose. It isn't the first time, I'll own but some day I take it there will be a last time. Enough of this, however! You haven't told me a thing about yourself.
And now, at the sound of his voice speaking her name, she had almost bared her heart to him. No wonder that Alice, with a haste that looked like terror, crossed the floor and flooded the room with light. "Dear me!" she shivered, carefully avoiding Arkwright's eyes. "If Mr. Calderwell were here now he'd have some excuse to talk about our lost spirits that wail.
Anyhow, Cyril is building a new house, and he looks as if he were in a pretty healthy condition, as you'll see to-morrow night." "Humph! I wish he'd make his music healthy, then," grumbled Calderwell, as he opened the door. February brought busy days.
That is a creepy piece of music when you play it in the dark!" And, for fear that he should suspect how her heart was aching, she gave a particularly brilliant and joyous smile. Once again at the mention of Calderwell's name Arkwright stiffened perceptibly. The fire left his eyes. For a moment he did not speak; then, gravely, he said: "Calderwell?
"For you just begin to know Miss Billy when you find out that you DON'T know her. She is a charming girl a very charming girl." "She is my namesake," announced William, in what Bertram called his "finest ever" voice that he used only for the choicest bits in his collections. "Yes, she told me," smiled Calderwell. "'Billy' for 'William. Odd idea, too, but clever.
And as if to convince herself, Marie, Aunt Hannah, and all the world that such was the case, she refused Calderwell so decidedly that night when he, for the half-dozenth time, laid his hand and heart at her feet, that even Calderwell himself was convinced so far as his own case was concerned and left town the next day. Bertram told Aunt Hannah afterward that he understood Mr.
Arkwright. As I said before, we're friends the best of friends; that is all. We couldn't be anything else, possibly!" Billy, plainly discomfited, fell back; but she threw a sharp glance into her friend's flushed countenance. "You mean because of Hugh Calderwell?" she demanded.
Already she was at work rewriting and polishing some of her half-completed melodies, and Cyril was helping her, by his interest as well as by his criticism. He was, in fact, at the house very frequently too frequently, indeed, to suit either Bertram or Calderwell.
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