“Then the decks are cleared for action,” Hobart said with relief. “Before you sing to-day, let me add that the greatest lesson to learn in order to be a genius, no matter in what capacity, is to be impersonal. Talent is _personal_. That is why you have so excellent a foundation.” “Always impersonal?” He shrugged his shoulders, impatient of the interruption. “We can’t tell when I haven’t even heard you sing. My dear child, were I to map out destinies for every one who comes to me, I should be quite mad. As it is, to be the ‘final judgment’ takes the disposition of a dove and the constitution of a lion. You’ll see what I mean later on. You have had so little education in one way that it will be hard for you to catch up. You’ll have to work without ceasing. But you don’t look like a shirker.” “I’m not,” she said, hating herself for the flat remark. “There are two kinds of persons in this world,” he mused, rising and going over to the piano, “those who wait for a dead man’s shoes and those keen enough to employ their own bootmaker. I never hear any one sing unless I judge them to be of the last class and so,” sitting down and magically running his fingers over the keys, “tell me—what can you sing?” “I love the rôle of _Marguerite_,” she began innocently. He paused to chuckle. “Bravo! There never was a really normal soprano who did not aspire to _Marguerite_ for her début. It is as much a soprano symptom, as it is a tenor symptom to yearn to do sacred arias on Easter Sunday and a basso to growl to be heard at open air music festivals. The only rhythmic thing about contraltos is their delight in having cigars named after them.” He looked up to see if she was laughing at his nonsense. “But why?” she demanded seriously. “Well, why are brides fond of trying scalloped potatoes in new silver pudding dishes? Why do young widows join bridge clubs or why does a boy cherish his first teeth to trade in at school for king-chestnuts?” He picked out a flippant little chord as punctuation. “You must not call me too stupid,” Thurley said unexpectedly, leaning her arms on the piano, “but my original sense of humor—the one I was born with—had to be put in cold storage when I settled down at Birge’s Corners and began to borrow the minister’s library in sections. They just could not have understood it. But I do believe it is reviving.” “A sense of humor is the most precious thing in the world,” Hobart told her. “It ranks with a sense of honor. And if you had to repress it, I am glad you merely put it in cold storage. Sing this scale, please,” he added, rapidly striking the notes. Thurley sang it; then another and some exercises which she thought difficult and felt proud of having done so easily. They were exercises the city organist had halfway taught her and which she had practised diligently by means of Betsey Pilrig’s parlor organ. “Some more—lightly, quickly—no, no, you’re hissing—try mi—mi-mi—so.” Again she followed the notes cleverly—so she thought.