"Precisely." "I'd like it, sir. "And I obey." "This is getting rather intimate," Ethel told herself that night. "Never mind, my love, you've been perfectly honest. He knows very well what you're after. And if he likes you and wants to help, so much the better." Some days in the studio she stuck severely to her voice and showed him she meant business. She was practising quite hard, and her progress was by no means slow. But on other days half the hour at least was spent in learning from her new friend about "a Paris in New York." Dwight was already finding one, although he had been here less than a year. In this teeming city of endless change he had found a deep joy of creation, of newness, youth and boldness that made even Paris seem far behind. "It's all so amazingly big," he said, "with such revealing chances opening up on every side!" How simple it was for him, she thought, with a little pang of envy. A young musician with plenty of talent, easy manners, single, free. As he spoke of his club friends and some of their homes that were open to him, the glimpses exasperated her. Here were the people she wanted to know, a little world of artists, architects and writers, and goodness only knew what else. She was still rather vague about them. To her surprise she discovered that many were after money, too. "Decidedly," her teacher said. "Excessively," he added. "But at least," she rejoined, defending them, "when they get the money they know how to spend it on something better than food and clothes! They really live--I'm sure they do--and have ideas and really grow!" She caught her breath. What an idiot, to have said so much! "I'm so glad," she added lamely, "that you got my husband into your club. It's bound to do so much for him." She threw a sharp little glance at Dwight, and scowled, for she thought she detected a smile. "He's doing something for the club," Dwight was saying cheerfully. "Some of those chaps are a bit too refined and remote for this raw crude city of ours. And Joe is getting back enough of his old vim and passion, his wild radical ideas of what may still be done with the town, so that he jars on such sensitive souls--makes 'em frown and bite their moustaches like the husbands in French plays. On the other hand some are decidedly for him. I hear them discuss him now and then." "Oh, how nice!" sighed Ethel.