Billy's lips came together in a thin little determined line. “Bertram, I am going home now, please,” she said. “You needn't come with me; I can go alone.” Bertram said two words under his breath which it was just as well, perhaps, that Billy--and the neighbors--did not hear; then he gathered up their wraps and, with Billy, stalked out of the theater. At home everything was found to be absolutely as it should be. Bertram, Jr., was peacefully sleeping, and Delia, who had come up from downstairs, was sewing in the next room. “There, you see,” observed Bertram, a little sourly. Billy drew a long, contented sigh. “Yes, I see; everything is all right. But that's exactly what I wanted to do, Bertram, you know--to _see for myself_,” she finished happily. And Bertram, looking at her rapt face as she hovered over the baby's crib, called himself a brute and a beast to mind _anything_ that could make Billy look like that. CHAPTER XXV. “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. “I want 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 I don'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.