ence. "I don't believe I've ever sung so well;--could have, at least,
if there had been room enough to turn around in. It was all there; it's
getting bigger all the time. Not just the voice, if you know what I mean,
darling, but what I could do with it."

"It was partly Novelli, I suspect," he said. "Having him for an
accompanist, I mean. He's very good indeed, isn't he?"

"Oh, yes, he's good," she assented absently. "Awfully good. And he is a
nice furry little enthusiastic thing; like a faun, rather; exciting to
play with of course. But it wasn't that. It's you, really--being in love
with you the way I am. I suppose that's the very best thing that could
possibly have happened to me. I'm another person altogether from that
girl you found in Vienna. Just where she left off, I begin."

She uttered a little laugh then of sheer exuberance and with a strong
embrace, pressed his head hard against her breast. He yielded passively,
made no response of his own beyond a deep-drawn breath or two. A moment
later when she had released him and risen to her feet, he rose too.

"Would Novelli be procurable?" he asked. "Could he be engaged regularly,
as an accompanist for you and so on?"

She looked at him rather oddly. "Why, I don't need him," she said, "as
long as I am just playing. Of course, if I were to go regularly to work,
somebody like him would be almost necessary."

There was a tight little silence for a few seconds after that, he once
more evading her eyes. "It seems to me you work most of the time as it
is," he said. Then he announced his intention of going up-stairs to take
a nap. He wasn't going to the hospital until eleven.

He did go up to his room and lay down upon his bed and, eventually, he
slept. But for an hour, his mind raced like an idle motor. That nonsense
of Lucile's about Portia Stanton's folly in marrying a young musician
whose big Italian eyes would presently begin looking soulfully at some
one else. Had they already looked like that at Paula? Jealousy itself
wasn't a base emotion. Betraying it was all that mattered. You couldn't
help feeling it for any one you loved. Paula, bending over that furry
faun-like head, reading off the same score with him, responding to the
same emotions from the music.... Fantastic, of course. There could be no
sane doubt as to who it was that Paula was in love with. That embrace of
hers, just now. Curious how it terrified him. He had felt like a mouse
under the soft paw of