There was the introduction to the stage itself and her future associates. Thurley thanked heaven for blasé indifference at that time. She conducted herself at rehearsals with the poise of a diplomat and when she sang the impassioned love scene in the singing lesson of “The Barber of Seville” she almost laughed at the famous tenor who irritably accepted this rôle with a “so-great-nobody,” as he mockingly informed Thurley, rushing off to meet his last affinity and be properly comforted. She began to see the truth of Lissa’s prophecy regarding the life of opera singers. Yet this anesthesia of indifference spared her harsh emotions or critical judgments. She was merely keeping her pledge, she told herself night after night when she was finally alone with her thoughts. All of which won her the title of conceited and spoiled and certain to fail. Bliss Hobart saw her ruse and kept his own counsel; Miss Clergy thought it her eternal triumph over personal affection and whispered to Thurley of her satisfaction. And when the great night of nights came and Thurley, as unconcernedly as if she were at the old meeting house on a Sunday morning, stood and accepted curtain calls and baskets of flowers, trying not to remember the tenor’s repeated comment, “You so-great-nobody, you been drinking witches’ broth,”—Thurley knew she had succeeded. Her début was ended. Hereafter she was free to command her own life—life was really beginning for her anew, since it had temporarily stopped the day she left the Corners and these strange people had lived it for her in a vicarious fashion. Now that she had won fame—with the loss of love—she had won freedom and she was Thurley Precore, prima donna! After the last act, when Thurley’s dressing-room was a buzz of animated conversation and the scent of the flowers almost sickish, when her new maid fluttered nervously about and Bliss Hobart came in to say, “I knew you would—so there’s nothing to exclaim about, is there?”—and all the sisters of the press clamored for “a word,” with others crowding about and looking properly animated and delighted, Miss Clergy whispered, “My darling, how proud I am,” and Thurley recoiled, she knew not why. “A finer bridegroom than Dan Birge,” the ghost-lady was murmuring, “fame! He is the finest bridegroom of all—fame, Thurley—and I’m so proud of you!” Naturally there was a “party” which Thurley actually dreaded since she felt she could not yet assert her independence. She was like a gay young eaglet chained and longing to soar where she would! Yet she must sit quietly and be praised and petted, the object of excessive sentiments, just as family birthday dinners are a signal for numberless indulgences. Thurley was eager to have done with the unusual, to live as she wished to live.