I hear of it occasionally through musical friends of
mine. They even play it to me sometimes. But I can't stand for much of
it--his stuff--really, Billy."
"'Stuff' indeed! And why not?" An odd hostility showed in Billy's eyes.
Again Calderwell shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't ask me. I don't know. But they're always dead slow, somber
things, with the wail of a lost spirit shrieking through them."
"But I just love lost spirits that wail," avowed Billy, with more than a
shade of reproach in her voice.
Calderwell stared; then he shook his head.
"Not in mine, thank you;" he retorted whimsically. "I prefer my spirits
of a more sane and cheerful sort."
The girl laughed, but almost instantly she fell silent.
"I've been wondering," she began musingly, after a time, "why some one
of those three men does not--marry."
"You wouldn't wonder--if you knew them better," declared Calderwell.
"Now think. Let's begin at the top of the Strata--by the way, Bertram's
name for that establishment is mighty clever! First, Cyril: according
to Bertram Cyril hates 'all kinds of women and other confusion'; and I
fancy Bertram hits it about right. So that settles Cyril. Then there's
William--you know William. Any girl would say William was a dear; but
William isn't a MARRYING man. Dad says,"--Calderwell's voice softened a
little--"dad says that William and his young wife were the most devoted
couple that he ever saw; and that when she died she seemed to take with
her the whole of William's heart--that is, what hadn't gone with the
baby a few years before.
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