William and Aunt Hannah still smiled contentedly in their chairs, though Aunt Hannah had reached for the pink shawl near her--the music had sent little shivers down her spine. Cyril, with Marie, had slipped into the little reception-room across the hall, ostensibly to look at some plans for a house, although--as everybody knew--they were not intending to build for a year. Bertram, still sitting stiffly erect in his chair, was not conscious of a vague irritation now. He was conscious of a very real, and a very decided one--an irritation that was directed against himself, against Billy, and against this man, Arkwright; but chiefly against music, _per se_. He hated music. He wished he could sing. He wondered how long it took to teach a man to sing, anyhow; and he wondered if a man could sing--who never had sung. At this point the duet came to an end, and Billy and her guest left the piano. Almost at once, after this, Arkwright made his very graceful adieus, and went off with his suit-case to the hotel where, as he had informed Aunt Hannah, his room was already engaged. William went home then, and Aunt Hannah went up-stairs. Cyril and Marie withdrew into a still more secluded corner to look at their plans, and Bertram found himself at last alone with Billy. He forgot, then, in the blissful hour he spent with her before the open fire, how he hated music; though he did say, just before he went home that night: “Billy, how long does it take--to learn to sing?” “Why, I don't know, I'm sure,” replied Billy, abstractedly; then, with sudden fervor: “Oh, Bertram, hasn't Mr. Mary Jane a beautiful voice?” Bertram wished then he had not asked the question; but all he said was: “'Mr. Mary Jane,' indeed! What an absurd name!” “But doesn't he sing beautifully?” “Eh? Oh, yes, he sings all right,” said Bertram's tongue. Bertram's manner said: “Oh, yes, anybody can sing.” CHAPTER VIII. M. J. OPENS THE GAME On the morning after Cyril's first concert of the season, Billy sat sewing with Aunt Hannah in the little sitting-room at the end of the hall upstairs. Aunt Hannah wore only one shawl this morning,--which meant that she was feeling unusually well. “Marie ought to be here to mend these stockings,” remarked Billy, as she critically examined a tiny break in the black silk mesh stretched across the darning-egg in her hand; “only she'd want a bigger hole. She does so love to make a beautiful black latticework bridge across a yawning white china sea--and you'd think the safety of an army depended on the way each plank was laid, too,” she concluded. Aunt Hannah smiled tranquilly, but she did not speak.