“Just be sincere and everything else trues up—and don’t grow plump like Lissa, because banting is an awful bugbear.” At which Thurley tossed her newly laurel-crowned head and determined to try artifice to make him pay her attention. After all, these fads and fashions were merely antidotes to make her forget the thing she craved foremost—Bliss Hobart’s real friendship. So she ordered lavishly of whatsoever she chose, moving without delay into an apartment, with Miss Clergy tottering contentedly after. It was a personal triumph for Miss Clergy; with Thurley it was only the natural result of having been born a singer. “I have my own ideas for my apartment,” she told Ernestine with patronage, even waving aside Lissa’s suggestions for a “love of a boudoir—just the place for proposals” and returning Mark’s offering of a gilt mirror because it did not harmonize with her color scheme! “Let her play away, she’ll tire of it,” Sam Sparling said indulgently, when Polly dropped in at the theater to recount Thurley’s latest exploit, the purchase of antique Egyptian jewelry which she was to wear in “Aïda.” “Have you seen her apartments?” asked Polly. “Not like Thurley at all. I associate her with real mahogany and open fireplaces—rose-garden things.” “I’ll blow up that way to-morrow afternoon,” Sam promised. Which he did—only to be amazed himself at the effect Thurley had managed to create. Her living room had a blue floor, a blue arch and lapis lazuli colored pedestals. There was a turquoise satin fire screen, a globe of blue Bristol glass and the walls and ceilings were done in rich, silver leaf paper with impossible gilt furniture set at futurist angles throughout the apartment. Apricot linen curtains threw a strange, mellow glow on the black dining-room, the walls being brocaded black velvet with red alabaster bowls on tripods and a riotous futurist frieze running about the room. There were side tables of audacious rose-red marble and the dining table and chairs were polished ebony while an onyx-like mantel boasted of silver bowls heaped with glass colored fruits. Sam, who knew no restraint, came rapping boldly at the door of Thurley’s own room, after an astonished stroll through the apartment. A _chic_ maid opened the door with the properly startled expression always registered in Caleb’s novels. “I say, Thurley, you’ve done yourself proud,” Sam lounged in the doorway to view the white Empire furniture with elaborate gold scroll, the blue velvet hangings, the cabinet of slippers and hair ornaments arranged, no one knew why, not even Thurley herself, as if for display. Thurley, who was preparing to take dinner at the Hotel Particular with half a dozen new and decidedly unconventional creatures, tried to look indignant. “You’re a monster,” she said as she shook her finger at him in imitation of Lissa. At which Sam burst out laughing and vowed he would have her for his leading lady no matter if he had to send Bliss flying off yon cliff.