“We never have gotten along well together, have we, Sarah? I think the best way for us to do is not to talk when we’re around each other, unless we can’t avoid it.” Sarah stared at Joy, incredulous that the mist over the animosity of the two had at last blown away. “I mean it,” said Joy, “I need every bit of my energy for my work. I can’t waste any of it on you. I’m sure you feel the same way about me. So, let’s not—waste any energy.” Sarah, regarding her beneath incendiary brows, was just taking on energy. “It’s true we’ve never gotten on together. It started the first day you came and put Packy away in your reticule. You walked away with him, reticule and all. Packy was one of the best playmates I ever had—his hand and his pocket-book had well oiled connections. And now through you he’s queered himself, and will never blow around here again.” “I always felt Packy was at the bottom of it. But I don’t care. I’ve done my next-best to get along with you, and you too have made somewhat of an effort, but we can’t get along—so let’s not waste any more energy.” She walked out of the kitchenette, trembling. After a day of unmitigated, although varied, work, her nerves were rigid, and had given away at the first little jab. So far, the fall had been one of steady labour, punctuated only by Sarah’s jeers and by the music to which she had listened with Jim. Galli-Curci had come, a marvel and a thrill. And then, a little after that, they went to hear Frieda Hempel. If Galli-Curci’s voice was silver, Hempel’s was a rainbow shot with colours that danced or remained steadfast at will. Joy was powerless to compare the shimmering of her Proch’s Variations with the crystal joy of Galli-Curci in the same song. And the roguish dance of her “Fêtes Galantes,” where by winking she upset the Bostonians to such an extent that they made her repeat it. The stark tragedy of “The Linden Tree,” and “Home, Sweet Home,” at the end. Galli-Curci had played it for herself, and sung it gingerly, with such changes that Jim remarked: “Do you like ‘Home Sweet Home au naturel or maître d’hôtel?’” “I don’t like it at all,” Joy had said; “I wish people wouldn’t keep singing it—it’ll fly to pieces any minute, it’s so used up.” But when Frieda Hempel sang it, it took the aspect of a new song—new in its charm, old in its universal appeal——Joy looked around her at the faces turned to the blue-velvet figure pouring forth the hackneyed words; there was not a face that did not have a tense, strained expression—hardly a person who was not winking back a tear or letting them come unashamed. “Home, Sweet Home,” at which the critics groaned. . . . She and Jim did not look at each other until they were making their way out. Then Jim spoke. “Made you think—that the only important thing in life—was something we both are missing—didn’t it?” “Oh, to move people like that!” said Joy.