His picture _had_--With a little shudder Billy tossed aside these thoughts, and dug at her teary eyes with a determined hand.

Fiercely she told herself that the matter _was_ settled.

Very scornfully she declared that it was "only Kate," after all, and that she _would not_ let Kate make her unhappy again! Forthwith she picked up a current magazine and began to read.
As it chanced, however, even here Billy found no peace; for the first article she opened to was headed in huge black type: "MARRIAGE AND THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT." With a little cry Billy flung the magazine far from her, and picked up another.

But even "The Elusiveness of Chopin," which she found here, could not keep her thoughts nor her eyes from wandering to the discarded thing in the corner, lying ignominiously face down with crumpled, out-flung leaves.
Billy knew that in the end she should go over and pick that magazine up, and read that article from beginning to end.

She was not surprised, therefore, when she did it--but she was not any the happier for having done it.
The writer of the article did not approve of marriage and the artistic temperament.