Naturally, therefore, his time was well occupied.

Naturally, too, Billy, knowing this, lashed herself more sternly than ever into a daily reminder of Kate's assertion that he belonged first to his Art.
In pursuance of this idea, Billy was careful to see that no engagement with herself should in any way interfere with the artist's work, and that no word of hers should attempt to keep him at her side when ART called.

(Billy always spelled that word now in her mind with tall, black letters--the way it had sounded when it fell from Kate's lips.) That these tactics on her part were beginning to fill her lover with vague alarm and a very definite unrest, she did not once suspect.

Eagerly, therefore,--even with conscientious delight--she welcomed the new song-words that Arkwright brought--they would give her something else to take up her time and attention.

She welcomed them, also, for another reason: they would bring Arkwright more often to the house, and this would, of course, lead to that "casual meeting" between him and Alice Greggory when the rehearsals for the operetta should commence--which would be very soon now.