Ernestine shook her head. “Really, I think genius is something no other member of your family would countenance, something your ancestors have saved up to hand you unawares. I cannot help playing the piano. They say I even make people _like_ Bach, but I wish I could, for it is life to me, after a fashion, and death after another. You cannot mix house-and-garden living and a career any more than oil and water. It must be the choice absolute of one or the other. If a big person marries, she often marries some one inferior and therein lies disaster. Moral, do not marry.” Thurley’s fingers stole inside her pocket to clutch at the corner of Betsey’s letter. “But you can be happy, if you do not marry,” she said uneasily. “Has it begun to worry so soon? Wake up, Silver Heels! Tell her there is much else besides the little hope-chest crowded with pink-ribboned nighties and cook books.” She stirred the Persian kitten with her slipper toe. “I—I’ve been engaged,” Thurley announced, not knowing why. “Of course you have, living in a small town and with those eyes! Who was he—not the constable? I could believe anything of you, Thurley, but that!” Ernestine was kindly and teasing all in one. “Just a nice boy,” she said with an effort, “but I gave him up.” “You did wisely. It is the trying to delude ourselves to clutch with one hand for a laurel wreath and for orange blossoms with the other. That is what makes us failures on both sides of the question. You must see Collin’s lovely country place up the Hudson, and we must go to some lectures together. Besides, you have all Europe to exclaim over. I’m going to walk through Spain next summer. Come along?” “I’d love to if—if I have the money—” “We’ll find the money. You must do these things. Bliss is making a little machine out of you with his blessed, idealistic self, hidden like a monk under his habit. Never mind—bright days for Young America—want to hear me play?” “Would you, really?” “Listen!” Rising, she went to the piano and began “The Two Larks,” gliding from that into some things of Grieg. When she finished, Thurley, ruthlessly scattering cake crumbs, came beside her. The timid country girl had vanished. She was the wild-rose Thurley with the “fire, dash, touch of strangeness.” “Let me sing for you! You can tell me the truth, better than Mr. Hobart. Oh, but you can!” she begged. Ernestine pointed to the shelves of music, but Thurley shook her head. “I’ll play for myself,” sitting on the bench beside her hostess. The chords were few and far between, but the girl’s voice rose high and clear with the ethereal quality of a child’s, as she sang an old Scotch ballad. Ernestine Christian drew her to her with a sudden, deft gesture. “Shall I pity or congratulate you?” she asked, her sallow cheeks flushed with excitement.