"Perhaps I have, Miss Billy."
"Like Miss Letty's?"
"I'm not acquainted with the lady."
"Gee! wouldn't you two make a pair!" chuckled Billy unexpectedly. "No;
but, really, I mean--do you want people to walk on tiptoe and speak in
whispers?"
"Sometimes, perhaps."
The girl sprang to her feet--but she sighed.
"Then I'm going. This might be one of the times, you know." She
hesitated, then walked to the piano. "My, wouldn't I like to play on
that!" she breathed.
Cyril shuddered. Cyril could imagine what Billy would play--and Cyril
did not like "rag-time," nor "The Storm."
"Oh, do you play?" he asked constrainedly.
Billy shook her head.
"Not much. Only little bits of things, you know," she said wistfully, as
she turned toward the door.
For some minutes after she had gone, Cyril stood where she had left him,
his eyes moody and troubled.
"I suppose I might have played--something," he muttered at last;
"but--'The Maiden's Prayer'!--good heavens!"
Billy was a little shy with Cyril when he came down to dinner that
night. For the next few days, indeed, she held herself very obviously
aloof from him. Cyril caught himself wondering once if she were afraid
of his "nerves." He did not try to find out, however; he was too
emphatically content that of her own accord she seemed to be leaving him
in peace.
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