When the concert was over, she said to Jean-Pierre, "If you like, we will wait till the girls come out, and walk home with Danielle and her classmates." As she spoke she nodded to old Jeanne Amigorena, the cook in the American family, who stood there, also waiting, her young mistress' cloak and hat on her arm. It occurred to her that one of the first things to do would be to eliminate that servant. She probably knew altogether too much about Marise's family. It would not be prudent to have her around a young menage; and anyhow, old servants were an intolerable nuisance with their airs of belonging to the family. * * * * * Behind the scenes where the girls were waiting for the concert to begin, there had been a deal of giggling and whispering and rustling. Mademoiselle Vivier, chosen to turn the pages for the players because she was so severe it was thought she could keep them in order, was "gend'arming around" as the girls called it, pouncing on one group for laughing too loud, and on another for making too much noise as they executed grotesque caricatures of the way they intended to make their entries on the stage. The moment her back was turned, they whispered and giggled and pranced more wildly than ever, turning deep bows into pirouettes, shaking out their full skirts and whirling about like dervishes. Everybody took care to lose her music and get it all mixed up with everybody's else, just to see Mlle. Vivier go into the air. "Here's that missing sheet from your Schubert, Marguerite! Oh, no, it's Gabrielle's Chopin!" "Oh, all the scherzo pages have gone from my Delibes!" "Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, I feel so faint, I don't believe I _can_ play." "Oh, Mademoiselle, I forgot to bring my--oh, yes, here it is, right under Danielle! Get up, Danielle! Get up! _Mademoiselle!_ Danielle Garnier won't get off my music! Oh, Mademoiselle, can't I play my Nocturne instead of the Autumn Leaves! I _feel_ like a nocturne; just ready to go to sleep." Poor Mademoiselle Vivier, single-handed as she was, grew more and more frantic, rushing about, a dark red flush on her thin face, crying, "Sh, _sh_!" much more loudly than the girls were whispering, exhorting them angrily to have some manners, not to behave like so many barbarians, and to realize the seriousness of the occasion, the Gambert music prize at stake!