speechless. Paula's affairs had driven her
own pretty well out of her mind. She had stopped thinking about Graham.
She'd given over worrying about Rush. But she had not forgotten Anthony
March. The alternative possibility that Paula might have gone on with his
opera, that he might have been, but for what her father spoke of as rough
justice, attending rehearsals of it, hearing that big orchestra making a
reality of its unheard melodies, had been much in her mind. She had
wondered whether it was not really in Paula's. Along with a regret for
his downcast hopes. He was, in a way, the ladder she had climbed by.
Hearing her sing those wonderful songs of his was what had led LaChaise
to offer her this opportunity. And Paula didn't know, Mary was sure, of
anything that mitigated his disappointment. To her, he was merely one who
had tried and, pitiably, failed. She must, it seemed, have felt sorry
about it and Mary had considerately avoided all reference to him.

Now it appeared that Paula had blankly forgotten all about him.
Remembered him only when she wanted him to tune the piano. She callously
proposed to exact this service of him, and if possible, over the
telephone!

"I suppose," Mary said, when she had found her voice, "that I look the
way I feel. Paula, you _wouldn't_ do that!"

"Why not?" Paula demanded. And then with a laugh, "I wouldn't forget to
pay him this time. And it would be nice to see him again, too. Because I
really liked him a lot."

"Well, if you do like him, you wouldn't, would you, want to do
anything--cruel to him? Anything that he might take as--a willful insult?
Because it could be taken like that, I should think."

She spoke with a good deal of effort. Paula's surprise, the
incredulous way she had echoed the word cruel, the fact that there was
still an unshaken good humor in the look of curiosity that she
directed upon her stepdaughter, all but overwhelmed Mary with a sudden
wave of helpless anger.

What could one do with a selfishness as insolent as that? What was
there to say?

Paula got up, still looking at her in that puzzled sort of way, came over
to her chair, sat down on the arm of it and took her by the shoulders.

"You're trembling!" she said. "I suspect I am working you too hard. You
mustn't let me do that, you know. John will never forgive me if I do.
Why, about March, did you mean because I wouldn't sing his opera? He knew
all the time I wouldn't unless he could get it right. An