Perhaps it was because Billy saw so little of Cyril that it was Cyril whom she wished particularly to see. William, Bertram, Calderwell—all her other friends came frequently to the little house on the hill, Billy told herself; only Cyril held aloof—and it was Cyril that she wanted.
Billy said that it was his music; that she wanted to hear him play, and that she wanted him to hear her. She felt grieved and chagrined. Not once since she had come had he seemed interested—really interested in her music. He had asked her, it is true, in a perfunctory way what she had done, and who her teachers had been. But all the while she was answering she had felt that he was not listening; that he did not care. And she cared so much! She knew now that all her practising through the long hard months of study, had been for Cyril. Every scale had been smoothed for his ears, and every phrase had been interpreted with his approbation in view. Across the wide waste of waters his face had shone like a star of promise, beckoning her on and on to heights unknown... And now she was here in Boston, but she could not even play the scale, nor interpret the phrase for the ear to which they had been so laboriously attuned; and Cyril's face, in the flesh, was no beckoning star of promise, but was a thing as cold and relentless as was the waste of waters across which it had shone in the past.
Billy did not understand it. She knew, it is true, of Cyril's reputed aversion to women in general and to noise; but she was neither women in general nor noise, she told herself indignantly. She was only the little maid, grown three years older, who had sat at his feet and adoringly listened to all that he had been pleased to say in the old days at the top of the Strata. And he had been kind then—very kind, Billy declared stoutly. He had been patient and interested, too, and he had seemed not only willing, but glad to teach her, while now—
Sometimes Billy thought she would ask him candidly what was the matter. But it was always the old, frank Billy that thought this; the impulsive Billy, that had gone up to Cyril's rooms years before and cheerfully announced that she had come to get acquainted. It was never the sensible, circumspect Billy that Aunt Hannah had for three years been shaping and coaxing into being. But even this Billy frowned rebelliously, and declared that sometime something should be said that would at least give him a chance to explain.
In all the weeks since Billy's purchase of Hillside, Cyril had been there only twice, and it was nearly Thanksgiving now. Billy had seen him once or twice, also, at the Beacon Street house, when she and Aunt Hannah had dined there; but on all these occasions he had been either the coldly reserved guest or the painfully punctilious host. Never had he been in the least approachable.
“He treats me exactly as he treated poor little Spunk that first night,” Billy declared hotly to herself.
Only once since she came had Billy heard Cyril play, and that was when she had shared the privilege with hundreds of others at a public concert. She had sat then entranced, with her eyes on the clean-cut handsome profile of the man who played with so sure a skill and power, yet without a note before him. Afterward she had met him face to face, and had tried to tell him how moved she was; but in her agitation, and because of a strange shyness that had suddenly come to her, she had ended only in stammering out some flippant banality that had brought to his face merely a bored smile of acknowledgment.
Twice she had asked him to play for her; but each time he had begged to be excused, courteously, but decidedly.
“It's no use to tease,” Bertram had interposed once, with an airy wave of his hands. “This lion always did refuse to roar to order. If you really must hear him, you'll have to slip up-stairs and camp outside his door, waiting patiently for such crumbs as may fall from his table.”
“Aren't your metaphors a little mixed?” questioned Cyril irritably.
“Yes, sir,” acknowledged Bertram with unruffled temper, “but I don't mind if Billy doesn't. I only meant her to understand that she'd have to do as she used to do—listen outside your door.”
Billy's cheeks reddened.
“But that is what I sha'n't do,” she retorted with spirit. “And, moreover, I still have hopes that some day he'll play to me.”
“Maybe,” conceded Bertram, doubtfully; “if the stool and the piano and the pedals and the weather and his fingers and your ears and my watch are all just right—then he'll play.”
“Nonsense!” scowled Cyril. “I'll play, of course, some day. But I'd rather not today.” And there the matter had ended. Since then Billy had not asked him to play.
Thanksgiving was to be a great day in the Henshaw family. The Henshaw brothers were to entertain. Billy and Aunt Hannah had been invited to dinner; and so joyously hospitable was William's invitation that it would have included the new kitten and the canary if Billy would have consented to bring them.
Once more Pete swept and garnished the house, and once more Dong Ling spoiled uncounted squares of chocolate trying to make the baffling fudge. Bertram said that the entire Strata was a-quiver. Not but that Billy and Aunt Hannah had visited there before, but that this was different. They were to come at noon this time. This visit was not to be a tantalizing little piece of stiffness an hour and a half long. It was to be a satisfying, whole-souled matter of half a day's comradeship, almost like old times. So once more the roses graced the rooms, and a flaring pink bow adorned Spunkie's fat neck; and once more Bertram placed his latest “Face of a Girl” in the best possible light. There was still a difference, however, for this time Cyril did not bring any music down to the piano, nor display anywhere a copy of his newest book.
The dinner was to be at three o'clock, but by special invitation the guests were to arrive at twelve; and promptly at the appointed hour they came.
“There, this is something like,” exulted Bertram, when the ladies, divested of their wraps, toasted their feet before the open fire in his den.
“Indeed it is, for now I've time to see everything—everything you've done since I've been gone,” cried Billy, gazing eagerly about her.
“Hm-m; well, THAT wasn't what I meant,” shrugged Bertram.
“Of course not; but it's what I meant,” retorted Billy. “And there are other things, too. I expect there are half a dozen new 'Old Blues' and black basalts that I want to see; eh, Uncle William?” she finished, smiling into the eyes of the man who had been gazing at her with doting pride for the last five minutes.
“Ho! Will isn't on teapots now,” quoth Bertram, before his brother had a chance to reply. “You might dangle the oldest 'Old Blue' that ever was before him now, and he'd pay scant attention if he happened at the same time to get his eyes on some old pewter chain with a green stone in it.”
Billy laughed; but at the look of genuine distress that came into William's face, she sobered at once.
“Don't you let him tease you, Uncle William,” she said quickly. “I'm sure pewter chains with green stones in them sound just awfully interesting, and I want to see them right away now. Come,” she finished, springing to her feet, “take me up-stairs, please, and show them to me.”
William shook his head and said, “No, no!” protesting that what he had were scarcely worth her attention; but even while he talked he rose to his feet and advanced half eagerly, half reluctantly, toward the door.
“Nonsense,” said Billy, fondly, as she laid her hand on his arm. “I know they are very much worth seeing. Come!” And she led the way from the room. “Oh, oh!” she exclaimed a few moments later, as she stood before a small cabinet in one of William's rooms. “Oh, oh, how pretty!”
“Do you like them? I thought you would,” triumphed William, quick joy driving away the anxious fear in his eyes. “You see, I—I thought of you when I got them—every one of them. I thought you'd like them. But I haven't very many, yet, of course. This is the latest one.” And he tenderly lifted from its black velvet mat a curious silver necklace made of small, flat, chain-linked disks, heavily chased, and set at regular intervals with a strange, blue-green stone.
Billy hung above it enraptured.
“Oh, what a beauty! And this, I suppose, is Bertram's 'pewter chain'! 'Pewter,' indeed!” she scoffed. “Tell me, Uncle William, where did you get it?”
And uncle William told, happily, thirstily, drinking in Billy's evident interest with delight. There were, too, a quaintly-set ring and a cat's-eye brooch; and to each belonged a story which William was equally glad to tell. There were other treasures, also: buckles, rings, brooches, and necklaces, some of dull gold, some of equally dull silver; but all of odd design and curious workmanship, studded here and there with bits of red, green, yellow, blue, and flame-colored stones. Very learnedly then from William's lips fell the new vocabulary that had come to him with his latest treasures: chrysoprase, carnelian, girasol, onyx, plasma, sardonyx, lapis lazuli, tourmaline, chrysolite, hyacinth, and carbuncle.
“They are lovely, perfectly lovely!” breathed Billy, when the last chain had slipped through her fingers into William's hand. “I think they are the very nicest things you ever collected.”
“So do I,” agreed the man, emphatically. “And they are—different, too.”
“They are,” said Billy, “very—different.” But she was not looking at the jewelry: her eyes were on a small shell hairpin and a brown silk button half hidden behind a Lowestoft teapot.
On the way down-stairs William stopped a moment at Billy's old rooms.
“I wish you were here now,” he said wistfully. “They're all ready for you—these rooms.”
“Oh, but why don't you use them?—such pretty rooms!” cried Billy, quickly.
William gave a gesture of dissent.
“We have no use for them; besides, they belong to you and Aunt Hannah. You left your imprint long ago, my dear—we should not feel at home in them.”
“Oh, but you should! You mustn't feel like that!” objected Billy, hurriedly crossing the room to the window to hide a sudden nervousness that had assailed her. “And here's my piano, too, and open!” she finished gaily, dropping herself upon the piano stool and dashing into a brilliant mazourka.
Billy, like Cyril, had a way of working off her moods at her finger tips; and to-day the tripping notes and crashing chords told of a nervous excitement that was not all joy. From the doorway William watched her flying fingers with fond pride, and it was very reluctantly that he acceded to Pete's request to go down-stairs for a moment to settle a vexed question concerning the table decorations.
Billy, left alone, still played, but with a difference. The tripping notes slowed into a weird melody that rose and fell and lost itself in the exquisite harmony that had been born of the crashing chords. Billy was improvising now, and into her music had crept something of her old-time longing when she had come to that house a lonely, orphan girl, in search of a home. On and on she played; then with a discordant note, she suddenly rose from the piano. She was thinking of Kate, and wondering if, had Kate not “managed” the little room would still be home.
So swiftly did Billy cross to the door that the man on the stairs outside had not time to get quite out of sight. Billy did not see his face, however; she saw only a pair of gray-trousered legs disappearing around the curve of the landing above. She thought nothing of it until later when dinner was announced, and Cyril came down-stairs; then she saw that he, and he only, that afternoon wore trousers of that particular shade of gray.
The dinner was a great success. Even the chocolate fudge in the little cut glass bonbon dishes was perfect; and it was a question whether Pete or Dong Ling tried the harder to please.
After dinner the family gathered in the drawing-room and chatted pleasantly. Bertram displayed his prettiest and newest pictures, and Billy played and sung—bright, tuneful little things that she knew Aunt Hannah and Uncle William liked. If Cyril was pleased or displeased, he did not show it—but Billy had ceased to play for Cyril's ears. She told herself that she did not care; but she did wonder: was that Cyril on the stairs, and if so—what was he doing there?
Two days after Thanksgiving Cyril called at Hillside.
“I've come to hear you play,” he announced abruptly.
Billy's heart sung within her—but her temper rose. Did he think then that he had but to beckon and she would come—and at this late day, she asked herself. Aloud she said:
“Play? But this is 'so sudden'! Besides, you have heard me.”
The man made a disdainful gesture.
“Not that. I mean play—really play. Billy, why haven't you played to me before?”
Billy's chin rose perceptibly.
“Why haven't you asked me?” she parried.
To Billy's surprise the man answered this with calm directness.
“Because Calderwell said that you were a dandy player, and I don't care for dandy players.”
Billy laughed now.
“And how do you know I'm not a dandy player, Sir Impertinent?” she demanded.
“Because I've heard you—when you weren't.”
“Thank you,” murmured Billy.
Cyril shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, you know very well what I mean,” he defended. “I've heard you; that's all.”
“When?”
“That doesn't signify.”
Billy was silent for a moment, her eyes gravely studying his face. Then she asked:
“Were you long—on that stairway?”
“Eh? What? Oh!” Cyril's forehead grew suddenly pink. “Well?” he finished a little aggressively.
“Oh, nothing,” smiled the girl. “Of course people who live in glass houses must not throw stones.”
“Very well then, I did listen,” acknowledged the man, testily. “I liked what you were playing. I hoped, down-stairs later, that you'd play it again; but you didn't. I came to-day to hear it.”
Again Billy's heart sung within her—but again her temper rose, too.
“I don't think I feel like it,” she said sweetly, with a shake of her head. “Not to-day.”
For a brief moment Cyril stared frowningly; then his face lighted with his rare smile.
“I'm fairly checkmated,” he said, rising to his feet and going straight to the piano.
For long minutes he played, modulating from one enchanting composition to another, and finishing with the one “all chords with big bass notes” that marched on and on—the one Billy had sat long ago on the stairs to hear.
“There! Now will you play for me?” he asked, rising to his feet, and turning reproachful eyes upon her.
Billy, too, rose to her feet. Her face was flushed and her eyes were shining. Her lips quivered with emotion. As was always the case, Cyril's music had carried her quite out of herself.
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she sighed. “You don't know—you can't know how beautiful it all is—to me!”
“Thank you. Then surely now you'll play to me,” he returned.
A look of real distress came to Billy's face.
“But I can't—not what you heard the other day,” she cried remorsefully. “You see, I was—only improvising.”
Cyril turned quickly.
“Only improvising! Billy, did you ever write it down—any of your improvising?”
An embarrassed red flew to Billy's face.
“Not—not that amounted to—well, that is, some—a little,” she stammered.
“Let me see it.”
“No, no, I couldn't—not YOU!”
Again the rare smile lighted Cyril's eyes.
“Billy, let me see that paper—please.”
Very slowly the girl turned toward the music cabinet. She hesitated, glanced once more appealingly into Cyril's face, then with nervous haste opened the little mahogany door and took from one of the shelves a sheet of manuscript music. But, like a shy child with her first copy book, she held it half behind her back as she came toward the piano.
“Thank you,” said Cyril as he reached far out for the music. The next moment he seated himself again at the piano.
Twice he played the little song through carefully, slowly.
“Now, sing it,” he directed.
Falteringly, in a very faint voice, and with very many breaths taken where they should not have been taken, Billy obeyed.
“When we want to show off your song, Billy, we won't ask you to sing it,” observed the man, dryly, when she had finished.
Billy laughed and dimpled into a blush.
“When I want to show off my song I sha'n't be singing it to you for the first time,” she pouted.
Cyril did not answer. He was playing over and over certain harmonies in the music before him.
“Hm-m; I see you've studied your counterpoint to some purpose,” he vouchsafed, finally; then: “Where did you get the words?”
The girl hesitated. The flush had deepened on her face.
“Well, I—” she stopped and gave an embarrassed laugh. “I'm like the small boy who made the toys. 'I got them all out of my own head, and there's wood enough to make another.'”
“Hm-m; indeed!” grunted the man. “Well, have you made any others?”
“One—or two, maybe.”
“Let me see them, please.”
“I think—we've had enough—for today,” she faltered.
“I haven't. Besides, if I could have a couple more to go with this, it would make a very pretty little group of songs.”
“'To go with this'! What do you mean?”
“To the publishers, of course.”
“The PUBLISHERS!”
“Certainly. Did you think you were going to keep these songs to yourself?”
“But they aren't worth it! They can't be—good enough!” Unbelieving joy was in Billy's voice.
“No? Well, we'll let others decide that,” observed Cyril, with a shrug. “All is, if you've got any more wood—like this—I advise you to make it up right away.”
“But I have already!” cried the girl, excitedly. “There are lots of little things that I've—that is, there are—some,” she corrected hastily, at the look that sprang into Cyril's eyes.
“Oh, there are,” laughed Cyril. “Well, we'll see what—” But he did not see. He did not even finish his sentence; for Billy's maid, Rosa, appeared just then with a card.
“Show Mr. Calderwell in here,” said Billy. Cyril said nothing—aloud; which was well. His thoughts, just then, were better left unspoken.
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