At five minutes of six Bertram and Calderwell came. Bertram gave his peculiar¹ ring and let himself in with his latchkey; but Billy did not meet him in the hall, nor in the drawing-room. Excusing himself, Bertram hurried up-stairs. Billy was not in her room, nor anywhere on that floor. She was not in William's room. Coming down-stairs to the hall again, Bertram confronted William, who had just come in.

 

“Where's Billy?” demanded the young husband, with just a touch of irritation², as if he suspected William of having Billy in his pocket.

 

William stared slightly.

 

“Why, I don't know. Isn't she here?”

 

“I'll ask Pete,” frowned Bertram.

 

In the dining-room Bertram found no one, though the table was prettily⁴ set, and showed half a grapefruit at each place. In the kitchen—in the kitchen Bertram found a din³ of rattling⁵ tin, an odor of burned food—, a confusion of scattered⁶ pots and pans, a frightened cat who peered at him from under a littered stove, and a flushed, disheveled young woman in a blue dust-cap and ruffled⁷ apron⁸, whom he finally recognized as his wife.

 

“Why, Billy!” he gasped⁹.

 

Billy, who was struggling with something at the sink, turned sharply.

 

“Bertram Henshaw,” she panted, “I used to think you were wonderful because you could paint a picture. I even used to think I was a little wonderful because I could write a song. Well, I don't any more! But I'll tell you who is wonderful. It's Eliza and Rosa, and all the rest of those women who can get a meal on to the table all at once, so it's fit to eat!”

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