"Tell me about them," she said. "Tell me what they have been doing all these years.""Tell you about them! Why, don't you know?"She shook her head.
"No. Cyril says nothing. William little more--about themselves;and you know what Bertram is. One can hardly separate sense from nonsense with him.""You don't know, then, how splendidly Bertram has done with his art?""No; only from the most casual hearsay. Has he done well then?""Finely! The public has been his for years, and now the critics are tumbling over each other to do him honor. They rave about his 'sensitive, brilliant, nervous touch,'--whatever that may be; his 'marvelous color sense'; his 'beauty of line and pose.' And they quarrel over whether it's realism or idealism that constitutes his charm.""I'm so glad! And is it still the 'Face of a Girl'?""Yes; only he's doing straight portraiture now as well. It's got to be quite the thing to be 'done' by Henshaw; and there's many a fair lady that has graciously commissioned him to paint her portrait. He's a fine fellow, too--a mighty fine fellow. You may not know, perhaps, but three or four years ago he was--well, not wild, but 'frolicsome,' he would probably have called it. He got in with a lot of fellows that--well, that weren't good for a chap of Bertram's temperament.""Like--Mr. Seaver?"
Calderwell turned sharply.
"Did YOU know Seaver?" he demanded in obvious surprise.
"I used to SEE him--with Bertram."
"Oh! Well, he WAS one of them, unfortunately. But Bertram shipped him years ago."Billy gave a sudden radiant smile--but she changed the subject at once.
"And Mr. William still collects, I suppose," she observed.
"Jove! I should say he did! I've forgotten the latest; but he's a fine fellow, too, like Bertram.""And--Mr. Cyril?"
Calderwell frowned.
"That chap's a poser for me, Billy, and no mistake. I can't make him out!""What's the matter?"
"I don't know. Probably I'm not 'tuned to his pitch.' Bertram told me once that Cyril was very sensitively strung, and never responded until a certain note was struck. Well, I haven't ever found that note, I reckon."Billy laughed.
"I never heard Bertram say that, but I think I know what he means;and he's right, too. I begin to realize now what a jangling discord I must have created when I tried to harmonize with him three years ago! But what is he doing in his music?"The other shrugged his shoulders.
"Same thing. Plays occasionally, and plays well, too; but he's so erratic it's difficult to get him to do it. Everything must be just so, you know--air, light, piano, and audience. He's got another book out, I'm told--a profound treatise on somebody's something or other--musical, of course.""And he used to write music; doesn't he do that any more?""I believe so. 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.
