She was halfway angered at being forced into this submissive attitude. When she was a prima donna earning her own money she resolved that she would lead her own life in no half tones. It was all very well to know interesting, famous persons but to be at the mercy of their thousand and one peculiar notions and erratic actions was another matter. She noticed that Collin respected Ernestine’s wishes and Ernestine also respected Collin’s. Save for Caleb’s being in love with Ernestine and thus being rendered somewhat helpless, he followed his own inclinations and permitted Ernestine to do likewise. No one dreamed of telling Bliss Hobart what to do and what not to do and never did any one, although disapproving of Lissa, contemplate trying to reform her. Mark danced as he would and lived as he wished and there was an end of it. And who in the wide world had more latitude than Sam Sparling, who flirted with a duchess one day and had a shop girl driving in his car the next, giving midnight orgies for “the boys” and sending them packing when his nerves gave warning—Sam who flew off to Lake Louise one day, recklessly cancelling engagements, and returning very keen for the green room and the footlights to play for weeks at a time and then “hop across,” as he said, to Paris to rent some crumbling château and have it put in the pink of condition while he was engrossed in reading and rehearsing a new repertoire like a veritable savant. Lucky Sam, Lissa, Mark, Ernestine, Collin, Caleb—all of them for that matter! Thurley’s lips were rebellious of expression as she sat that warm June morning before the window, looking at the Avenue which throbbed with personalities each bent on its own way. She registered a vow that she, too, would acquire a personality, a hobby, a “phobia,” an intricate set of nerves and a color scheme—dear, yes, there should be no end to her “dew-dabs,” as Hobart named them. She would even have her own perfume, she would “recommend” a certain fabric and have her picture taken in a gown of it and printed in a leading fashion journal. She would rule over her apartment as rigorously as these others ruled over theirs; she would evolve a distinctive form of entertainment—to say nothing of openly indulging in moods and sulks and wild bursts of joy—and cigarettes and liquors if they did not harm her voice. This should be the reward for these snubbed months of being the spectator, dependent on some one else’s bounty. There likewise came an impulse not worthy of the real Thurley—nevertheless it came as strongly and with as much temptation as all the rest of her tempestuous plans. When she was rich and famous and still beautiful, she would return to the Corners to haunt Dan Birge as he had never dreamed a woman could haunt him. She would have some sort of romantic interest in her life even if she had given her pledge to Miss Clergy never to make the hideous mistake of marriage.