That first opera was a distinct blur, just as the rehearsals were blurs as soon as they ended. She realized she had jeopardized her liberty in a psychic fashion and given her word to certain things. She had finally served her apprenticeship and was now liberated. Why, she had sung _Rosina_ just as she had often sung lullabies to tired children or for Philena. Stupid world—God gave her a voice as He did brown hair and blue eyes, to herself belonged no credit. Yet here they sat about Bliss Hobart’s elegant supper table—Ernestine in her blue and gold and leopard skin gown and Caleb beside her, Lissa in startling cerise and jet trying to call Thurley “my darling child” and honeycomb her jealousy of Mark who ogled her in silly fashion. There was Miss Clergy, the real perpetrator of it all, who kept staring at her protégée in almost rude fashion, trying to realize that she had finally achieved her revenge! That was food and drink enough. Bliss Hobart was at Thurley’s right hand, a manager at her left; there were some critics and society satellites who had succeeded in being invited; Sam Sparling appeared with a girl on each arm, as he flippantly explained; while Thurley was a radiant but indifferent goddess, “the yellow peril,” according to Caleb’s description, in her brocaded frock with trimmings of silver. So they drank her health and sang her praises and all the time the wild-rose part of her laughed at them because she had not done her best nor anything to her mind which was unusual. In a different fashion, she had merely “sung for her supper” as she had once done in Birge’s Corners! When she reached the hotel, Miss Clergy wanted to talk and gloat, in truth, over the evening’s event. But Thurley shook her head. “I’m tired; even nightingales do nest,” she said, picking up some letters. They were mostly begging for trade from modistes and milliners but one in a scraggling writing was post-marked “Birge’s Corners.” Thurley opened it. After a moment she said in an even voice, “They are well and Ali Baba has made a new stormshed for the front.... Dan and Lorraine were married two days ago.” Then she went into her room, blowing Miss Clergy a hypocritical kiss. She was ashamed, as she lay down to sleep, that instead of thinking of her newly acquired freedom and success she was envying Dan Birge and Lorraine. Not even the sob sisters of the press would have guessed what the new and incomparable prima donna thought on the night of her début. It concerned neither her throat troubles nor her complexion, her possible suitors nor her coming wealth. But the question asked itself time without end: “Is it better to spoil one’s youth than to do nothing with it?” * * * * *