I had agreed to meet de Basil, and now I was in for it. There was one protracted meeting after another, with each seeming to merge, without perceptible break, into the next. The “Colonel” had a “heart,” which he coddled; he brought with him his hypochondriacal collection of “pills,” some of which were for his “heart,” some for other uses. With their help, he managed to keep wide awake but impassive through night after night. Discussion, argument; argument, discussion. As the conferences proceeded, de Basil reinforced his “pills” with his lawyers, this time the omnipresent Lidji and Asa Sokoloff. No one could be more aware of the “Colonel’s” inherent avoidance of honesty or any understandable code of ethics than I, yet he invariably commenced every conversation with: “Now if you will only be sincere and serious with me....” Always it was the other fellow who was insincere. Nearly all these meetings took place in the upper Fifth Avenue home of a friend of de Basil’s, a former _Time_ magazine associate editor, where he was a house-guest. I cannot imagine what sort of home life he and his wife could have had during this period when, what with the long sessions and the constant comings and goings, the place bore a stronger resemblance to a committee room adjacent to an American political convention than a quiet, conservative Fifth Avenue home. Not only was the place crowded with antiques, for de Basil’s host was a “collector,” but the “Colonel” had piled these pieces one on the top of another to turn the place into a warehouse. It was during the after-war shortage of food in Europe, whither the “Colonel” was repairing as soon as he could. Here, in his host’s home, the “Colonel” had opened his own package and shipping department. Box upon box, crate upon crate of bulky foods: mostly spaghetti. All sorts of foods: cost cheap, bulk large. This was the first time in my ballet career that I had written down a repertoire on cases of spaghetti. As these meetings continued, and took the toll of human patience and endurance, we were joined by my loyal adjutant, Mae Frohman, who was served a sumptuous dish of not particularly tasty but certainly very filling Russo-Caucasian-Georgian-Bulgarian negotiations. It is not to be supposed that this period was brief. It went on for nearly three weeks, day and night. One night progress was made; but before morning we were back where we started. Miss Frohman begged me to call off the entire business, to get out of it while the getting was good. The more she saw and heard, the more certain she was that her intuition was right; this was something to be given a wide berth. But I was in it now. There was no going back. Time, however, was running out. I had booked passage to fly to Europe. The date approached, as dates have a way of doing, until we reached the day before my scheduled departure. Mrs. Hurok remonstrated with me over the whole business. “What good can come from this?” she protested. “Are you mad?”