“I want ’Raine!” Dan cried, striking the chair arm with the flat of his palm. “And I’m going to marry her. I’ll wait until the house is built, if you think it best, but she’s promised to marry me and she won’t change.” “Then why bother me at all?” Lorraine’s father could not refrain from saying. “It was never a Birge habit, as I recall it.” After Dan left the parsonage study to tell Lorraine her father approved, but they would wait until Fairview was ready for occupancy, and diligently measured her ring finger, finding it two sizes smaller than Thurley’s, he left her, dazed with joy yet trying to still the something which whispered, “He loves Thurley; you must always be content with crumbs.” Lorraine began counting over the things in the long-closed hope chest and planning to crowd it to overflowing. What mattered it, if they were not married for a year or two? Was she not “bespoken” to Dan Birge? And Lorraine was quite positive she would not change her mind. Upon leaving Lorraine that day, Dan went to the box-car wagon to sit for a long time on its steps, thinking the bitter, rebellious things of youth, that dangerous noon-time, trying to forget the glorious moment when he had measured Thurley’s ring finger with a blade of grass she had plucked near Philena’s grave, how every bit of him thrilled with a new, savage joy and new, savage longings ... well, it was to be Lorraine! He flipped the bit of ribbon she had used as a ring guide on the end of his thumb in disdain. After all, it must hurt Thurley a very little when she should hear the news, and, like most of the world, when they cannot have their way unhampered, to hurt the object of past adoration is quite the natural procedure! When Birge’s Corners exhibited customary signs of fall, with winter clothes hung out to be beaten, smells of catsup and corn relish, the broken panes in the opera house windows repaired and the poster of a gaudy burlesque queen pasted on the billboard, a full line of mufflers and overcoats crowding the emporium show cases, bonfires of leaves and misty haze veiling the early mornings, Thurley Precore and Abby Clergy, two islands of old-fashionedness, entirely surrounded by seas of new fashion, safely ensconced in a comfortable hotel suite, were chatting like schoolgirls over the momentous event of the morrow. For Thurley was to meet the Napoleon of grand opera, the master critic and coach, who could make or mar the most talented person in creation—Bliss Hobart, a mysterious, powerful, never-erring judge of one’s abilities, both latent and developed. Miss Clergy’s solicitors and Miss Clergy’s checkbook skilfully deciphered false lures of singing teachers and alleged powerful agents, and had, at the same time, discovered the nucleus of the New York art world. So Thurley was to make her bow, as it were, to the very public itself at noon to-morrow. CHAPTER IX