"I don't want to. I'm perfectly willing, eager even, to pilot the way from pier to pier, dance-hall to dance-hall. I may even make small, tentative suggestions, which will tickle me to death to have considered." Jerome Stuart's eyes twinkled in a way that had once reminded Jean of Gregory, and had hurt. Now she liked it.
The teas, dreaded by Jerome, Jean easily escaped. No one took offense at her preference nor made a personal matter of it. If there was no consideration of each other in this scheme of freedom, neither was there any claim. It was not until late in April that Catherine put the matter of the last tea as a personal request.
"It's the yearly Round-up," she explained, "and is really a matter of business. This year it's specially important to me, I have several protégées I want to launch and now I've got the woman who can do it. Mrs. J. William Dalton——"
"Who!"
"Exactly, if she makes you feel like that. There could not be two. Besides, I hear that hers used to be The Poor. Now it's Art, but when she gets them both combined, she just runs amuck. That's what I intend her to do. Tony Rimaldi is fourteen, the oldest of ten in a Mott Street tenement, and if you had come to the other teas you would know that Tony is a genius. He plays the violin so that even I get woozly inside, and Philip has been known to cry. Peter Poloff's nineteen, and although he will never equal Tony, he has enough of the real thing to make him a worth-while pianist, and he's never had a chance. Dalton's going to be the motif of this round-up and afterwards she's going to sponsor a concert for my prodigies and, zip, their future's settled! But every one of you has got to help. Dalton simply can't function without a back-drop, and we're going to give her one."
"Willingly, but what can I do?"
"Come. She hasn't forgotten her sociological days yet and, besides, the publicity you and Stuart are creating about legalizing illegitimate children hasn't escaped her. He has to come too. We'll give her the whole shooting match, sociology, art, pedagogy, science, society, anything we can get our fingers on. You will, won't you?"
"Certainly."
"And that Stuart hermit? His daughter can't persuade him, but perhaps you can."
Jean laughed. "What Alice can't do with her father hasn't much hope for any one else. But I'll try."