ot slow to discover that Lily Condor was first on the bill, and she
remembered reading somewhere in a newspaper that among professionals the
first and last place were always loathsome positions. Judging from the
noise and confusion that accompanied their efforts, Claire could well
understand why this was so, and she expected to find Lily Condor
resentful. But to her surprise Mrs. Condor merely shrugged her shoulders
and said:

"What difference does it make? They don't come to listen, anyway.
Besides, I always open the bill. I like to get it over quickly."

But Claire had reason to suspect, as she followed the remainder of a
very excellent program, that the choice of position did not rest with
Mrs. Condor. Claire began to wonder how much money Mrs. Condor received
for an effort like this. And she became more puzzled as she gathered
from the conversation of the other artists about her that the talent had
been furnished gratuitously.

"I understand," she heard a woman in front of her whisper to her
companion, "that Devincenzi, the 'cellist, is the only one in the crowd
who is getting a red cent. But he has a rule, you know--or is it a
contract? I'm sure I don't know. At any rate, they say that the
Ffinch-Browns donated his fee.... The Ffinch-Browns? Don't you know
them?... See, there they are ... over there by the Tom Forsythes. She
has on turquoise pendant earrings.... Oh, they're ever so charitable!
But they do say that she is something of a...."

Claire lost the remainder of this stage whisper in a rather tremulous
anxiety to catch a glimpse of her aunt before she moved. Claire had to
acknowledge that at a distance her aunt gave a wonderful illusion of
arrested youth as she stood with one hand grasping the collar of her
gorgeous mandarin coat. But Claire was more interested in the turquoise
pendants than in her aunt. She had never seen the jewels before, but she
had heard about them almost from the time she was able to lisp.

"They're mine," Mrs. Robson had repeated to Claire again and again. "My
father bought them for me when I was sixteen years old. I remember the
day distinctly, and how my mother said: 'Don't you think, John, that
Emily is a little young for anything like this? I'll keep them for her
until she is twenty.' I nearly cried myself sick, but of course mother
was right, _then_.... But like everything else, I never got my hands on
them again. And what is more, Julia Carrol Ffinch-Brown knows that they