y. Nobody is." He repeated the loveliest phrase. "How does
she manage it, Landry? You've worked with her."

Landry drew cherishingly on the last cigarette he meant to permit
himself before singing. "Oh, it's a question of a big personality--and
all that goes with it. Brains, of course. Imagination, of course. But
the important thing is that she was born full of color, with a rich
personality. That's a gift of the gods, like a fine nose. You have it,
or you haven't. Against it, intelligence and musicianship and habits of
industry don't count at all. Singers are a conventional race. When Thea
was studying in Berlin the other girls were mortally afraid of her. She
has a pretty rough hand with women, dull ones, and she could be rude,
too! The girls used to call her DIE WOLFIN."

Fred thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the
piano. "Of course, even a stupid woman could get effects with such
machinery: such a voice and body and face. But they couldn't possibly
belong to a stupid woman, could they?"

Landry shook his head. "It's personality; that's as near as you can come
to it. That's what constitutes real equipment. What she does is
interesting because she does it. Even the things she discards are
suggestive. I regret some of them. Her conceptions are colored in so
many different ways. You've heard her ELIZABETH? Wonderful, isn't it?
She was working on that part years ago when her mother was ill. I could
see her anxiety and grief getting more and more into the part. The last
act is heart-breaking. It's as homely as a country prayer meeting: might
be any lonely woman getting ready to die. It's full of the thing every
plain creature finds out for himself, but that never gets written down.
It's unconscious memory, maybe; inherited memory, like folk-music. I
call it personality."

Fred laughed, and turning to the piano began coaxing the FRICKA music
again. "Call it anything you like, my boy. I have a name for it myself,
but I shan't tell you." He looked over his shoulder at Landry, stretched
out by the fire. "You have a great time watching her, don't you?"

"Oh, yes!" replied Landry simply. "I'm not interested in much that goes
on in New York. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll have to dress." He rose
with a reluctant sigh. "Can I get you anything? Some whiskey?"

"Thank you, no. I'll amuse myself here. I don't often get a chance at a
good piano when I'm away from home. You haven't had this one long, have