“Maybe I’ve just wanted to see how you cared,” he suggested. “Got any more of that stuff to drink?” He sat on the tête-à-tête and, waiting until she poured it out, let him celebrate the defeat of his better half. “My word, Thurley has a long road to go!” CHAPTER XVII Thurley did not see much of Lissa or Mark for the next few weeks. Perhaps Lissa deemed it wiser not to encourage Thurley’s becoming one of her protégées because of Mark,—at least, until Thurley was a prima donna and her mind busied with many things. At the present time Thurley was amenable to all new faces and suggestions. Had she permitted her to be more with Mark than was customary who knows but what the result would spell disaster for Lissa’s contentment. Let Thurley taste of fame as Lissa had, for a short time, tasted, and she knew no mere individuals could claim her attention as they might now. Neither did Thurley see Sam Sparling nor Ernestine for they were on tour. Sam sent her a doll, a wonderful, fluffy-skirted young lady doll with her brown hair combed modishly, bits of kid gloves reaching to the dimpled, wax elbows and a paste brilliant necklace. The accompanying card read, “Thurley Precore, prima donna, from an old beau!” And when Thurley audaciously took the doll to Hobart’s studio the next lesson hour, Hobart pretended to give the lesson to the doll and not Thurley, saying in conclusion, “As no one else is here, Thurley, I can lecture you all I like and say what I really think—how charming you look in that costume—but please don’t listen to Lissa’s nonsense, you’ll hear enough of it presently. Kid gloves, too! I declare if Sam hasn’t lost his old heart—” “Why not listen to Lissa?” asked Thurley, imitating a doll’s shrill voice. “Because you must choose the straight, narrow path of hard work and a terrific loneliness of soul if your success is to be lasting and independent of others. You may bestow your affections on some one as a gracious favor—after you have made for yourself your public place—but never listen to what such women as Lissa chatter about—or such women as you will meet in the opera house. You will see them come and go, quickly appearing and more rapidly disappearing and that is because they have followed Lissa’s logic.” “But please,” still imitating the doll’s voice, “what in the world am I to do? I’ve promised never to marry any one and I’m sure I won’t love any one I cannot marry. I’m not keen on slum work and I don’t choose cigarettes and Persian kitties for my home atmosphere as Ernestine does—nor attics like Polly.” Hobart’s face was grave. “Some day, we will talk about things and I will tell my secrets—but not yet, you are too young and flushed with dreams.” He stopped speaking to the doll as he added, “You must tramp abroad with Ernestine this summer; Miss Clergy may go or not as she wishes. But when you return you are to start rehearsals for your début.”