park for the performance, spending the evening in
her dressing-room or in the wings chatting sometimes with other members
of the force whom she found it possible to get acquainted with;
occasional incursions into the front of the house to note how something
went or, more simply, just to hear something she liked; driving Paula
home again at last, undressing her; having supper with her--the most
substantial meal of the day--talking it over with her; and so, like Mr.
Pepys--to bed.

It might shock Wallace Hood, a schedule like that, but there were days
when to Mary it was a clear God-send.

She decided within the first twenty-four hours to wait for some sort of
lead from Paula before plunging into a discussion of her father's
affairs. It would take the edge off if the thing weren't too glaringly
premeditated. Paula just now was doing all she could. Mary opened all her
mail and would know if any offer came in that involved future plans. She
accepted the respite gratefully.

She had a use to put it to. For the first two or three days after her
return, she had not been able to turn to anything that associated itself
with Anthony March without such an emotional disturbance as prevented her
from thinking at all. The mere physical effect of those sheets of score
paper was, until she could manage to control it, such as to make any
continuance of the labor of translating his opera, impossible.

By a persistent effort of will she presently got herself in hand however
and went on not only with her translation but with the other moves in her
campaign to get _The Outcry_ produced. Her first thought was that
something might be accomplished directly through LaChaise. Her simple
plan had been to make friends with him so that when she urged the
arguments for producing this work, they'd be--well--lubricated by his
liking for her.

She began saying things to him on a rather more personal note, things
with a touch of challenge in them. There was no gradual response to this
but suddenly--a week or ten days after her return from Hickory Hill this
was--he seemed to perceive her drift. He turned a look upon her, the
oddest sort of look, startled, inquiring, lighted up with a happy though
rather incredible surmise. It was an exclamatory look which one might
interpret as saying, "What's this! Do you really mean it!"

Mary got no further than that. She didn't mean it, of course, a serious
love-affair with LaChaise, and she tried for a while t