“Well, I'm glad you came, anyway,” sighed Billy, contentedly; “though I suppose I ought to be sorry that you were lonesome--but I'm afraid I'm not, for now you'll know just how I felt, so you won't mind if I'm a little wild and erratic. You see, the tension has snapped,” she added laughingly, as she seated herself.
“The wedding, you know. For so many weeks we've been seeing just December twelfth, that we'd apparently forgotten all about the thirteenth that came after it; so when I got up this morning I felt just as you do when the clock has stopped ticking. But it was a lovely wedding, Mr. Arkwright. I'm sorry you could not be here.”
“Thank you; so am I--though usually, I will confess, I'm not much good at attending 'functions' and meeting strangers. As perhaps you've guessed, Miss Neilson, I'm not particularly a society chap.”
“Of course you aren't! People who are doing things--real things--seldom are. But we aren't the society kind ourselves, you know--not the capital S kind. We like sociability, which is vastly different from liking Society. Oh, we have friends, to be sure, who dote on 'pink teas and purple pageants,' as Cyril calls them; and we even go ourselves sometimes. But if you had been here yesterday, Mr. Arkwright, you'd have met lots like yourself, men and women who are doing things: singing, playing, painting, illustrating, writing. Why, we even had a poet, sir--only he didn't have long hair, so he didn't look the part a bit,” she finished laughingly.
“Is long hair--necessary--for poets?” Arkwright's smile was quizzical.
“Dear me, no; not now. But it used to be, didn't it? And for painters, too. But now they look just like--folks.”
“It isn't possible that you are sighing for the velvet coats and flowing ties of the past, is it, Miss Neilson?”
“I'm afraid it is,” dimpled Billy. “I _love_ velvet coats and flowing ties!”
“May singers wear them? I shall don them at once, anyhow, at a venture,” declared the man, promptly.
“I don't think you will. You all like your horrid fuzzy tweeds and worsteds too well!”
“You speak with feeling. One would almost suspect that you already had tried to bring about a reform--and failed. Perhaps Mr. Cyril, now, or Mr. Bertram--” Arkwright stopped with a whimsical smile.