“Have you done any work at all in the country?” Had she done any work? A swift memory of the real work of Greenacres swept over Jean, and she could have laughed. “Not much.” She shook her head. “I sort of lost my way for a while, there was so much else that had to be done, but I’m going to study now.” “Sit with us and make believe you are back anyway. Barbara, please show her Frances’s place. She will not be here for a week.” So just for one short week, Jean could make believe it was all true, that she was back as a “regular.” Every morning she went with Bab, and joined the class, getting inspiration and courage even from the teamwork. Late afternoons there was always something different to take in. That first day they had gone up to the recital at Carnegie Hall. Jean loved the ’cello, and it seemed as if the musician chose all the themes that always stirred her. Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat; one of the Rhapsodies, she could not remember which, but it always brought to her mind firelight and gypsies; and a tender, little haunting melody called “Petit Valse.” Up home she had played it often for her father at twilight and it always made her long for the unfulfilled hopes. And then the “Humoreske,” whimsical, questioning, it seemed to wind itself around her heart and tease her about all her yearnings. Miss Norman sang Russian folk songs and some Hebrides lullabies. “I’m not one bit crazy over her,” said Bab in her matter-of-fact way. “She looks too wholesome and solid to be singing that sort of music. I’d like to see her swing into Brunhilde’s call or something like that. She’d wake all the babies up with those lullabies.” “You make me think of Kit,” Jean laughed. “She always thinks out loud and says the first thing that comes to her lips.” “I know.” Bab’s face sobered momentarily as they came out of the main entrance and went around to the studio elevator. “Mother says I’ve never learned inhibition, and that made me curious. Of course, she meant it should. So I hunted up what inhibition meant in psychology and it did rather stagger me. You act on impulse, but if you’d only have sense enough to wait a minute, the nerves of inhibition beat the nerves of impulse, and reason sets in. I can’t bear reason, not yet. The only thing I really enjoyed in Plato was the death of Socrates.” “That’s funny. Kit said something about that a little while ago, the sunset, and his telling someone to pay for a chicken just as he took the poisoned cup.” “I’d like to paint it.” Bab’s gray eyes narrowed as if she saw the scene. “Why on earth haven’t the great artists done things like that instead of spotted cows and windmills.”