d he knew he
wasn't getting it right. He wanted to give it up long before he did, only
I wouldn't let him. But as for being insulted, bless you, he isn't like
that. And perhaps if he came I could get him all the pianos out here to
keep in tune. There must be dozens!"

At that Mary laughed in a recoil of genuine amusement. She could imagine
that Anthony March would laugh himself. In one particular Paula was
unquestionably right. He wouldn't feel insulted. He was just the last
person in the world to be accessible to such a petty emotion.

She returned Paula's hug and extricated herself from the chair.

"You needn't worry about me, at all events," she said. "I'm not tired a
bit. But could we worry a little about Mr. March? About his opera, I
mean? Don't you suppose we could get Mr. LaChaise to put it on? The way
he originally wrote it.--I mean for somebody else to sing."

"Fournier could sing it in a rather interesting way," Paula remarked
speculatively. "Only I don't believe he'd sing in English. Certainly
there's nobody else."

"Perhaps if he saw the score ..." Mary began.

"Gracious!" Paula broke in, a little startled, not much. "I haven't an
idea where that score is. I may have sent it back to him, but I don't
believe I did."

"No," Mary told her. "It's here. When I closed up the house, I brought it
along. He might be interested enough in it I should think," she
persisted, "if you and Mr. LaChaise told him how good it was,--to learn
it in English. Or it might, I suppose,--the whole thing I mean,--be
translated into French. There might, anyhow, prove to be something we
could do."

"Good heavens, child!" Paula said, "we're up to the eyes now, all three
of us. Will be for weeks as far as that goes. We simply couldn't think of
it." Through a yawn she added, "Not that it wouldn't be a nice thing to
do if we had time."

Paula's notion of getting March to come up and tune her piano was not
damped at all by the wet blanket of Mary's objection to it. From town
that day, Mary having driven her in for more fittings and photographers,
Paula telephoned to the Fullerton Avenue house and later told Mary in an
acutely dissatisfied manner that she had got simply nowhere with the
person with whom she had talked. "She pretends,--oh, it was his sister
or his mother, I suppose,--that they don't know anything whatever about
him. Haven't seen him for ever so long. Haven't an idea how to get word
to him. If only I had time to drive