"Nonsense. I might have done it myself," she answered laughing. "Anything to break up the monotony of Sunday afternoon!... Right in here, James. You sit on the bathtub and hold it tight. I'll rub it with a little soap, Here's a cloth." The boy did as he was told. "Why, that'll come right out. You'll never notice it," said Nan briskly rubbing the cloth held against his thin thigh. "You don't like Sunday either." His eyes looked up into hers with a sudden flash. She wrinkled up her nose and he laughed. From the wet woolly cloth came up a rough little smell like from Wenny's homespun. She felt herself flushing hotly. The boy looked up at her fixedly for a second and then the flush suffused his fair skin until it reddened his ears and the roots of his flaxen hair. "That'll do," said Nan gruffly. "No one will notice it now." She walked hurriedly to the stairs and down. "You'll play for us a bit, won't you, Nancibel?" said her Aunt when she was back in the parlor. "All right. You'll accompany won't you?" She brushed past James without looking at him as she went into the hall to fetch her violin. She was furious at herself for having blushed. As she leaned over to unstrap the violin case, the blood pounded in her temples and filled her eyes so that she could scarcely see. The blood in her ears was the sound of the grindorgan playing The Wearing of the Green after tea yesterday, when Wenny's cheek had been beside her cheek and they had looked at the throbbing star in the west. She tossed her head back and stood for a moment, her teeth firm together, the violin in one hand and bow in the other. And the girl who played the violin in the Fadettes had run off with an Italian who smelt of garlic like a young Greek god. O Fitzie's a romantic fool. "How well you are looking today," said Aunt M. from the pianostool. "Shall it be Bach, Nancibel?" * * * * A yellow mist had come in off the harbor during the evening so that walking home after the concert the streets were dim and unfamiliar and each arclight had a ruddy halo. Nan walked beside Fanshaw whose greenish raincoat made him look taller and thinner even than usual. Ahead of them they could hear Wenny and Betty Thomas laughing together. "What do you think of Betty?" Nan was saying in a low voice. "She's your latest discovery isn't she?... A trifle ... er ... unconscious I should say. No harm in her.... I wish she hadn't such a burr in her voice." "O you are chilly." "I didn't mean to be so pompous. She seems to like music. So rare in a musician." Nan laughed. "You seem to be feeling very superior this evening, Fanshaw. What have you done to be so cocky?" "Little enough, God knows.... Nan, I wish we could get Wenny settled somehow. I'm worried about him. He ought to get to work at something definite." "But he's so enormously alive, Fanshaw. How can one worry about him. O, if I had half his vitality, sensitiveness...."