"It isn't spoilt yet," Mabel replied. "It's only begun."
"Not spoilt for you, perhaps. You never think of me. You solemnly promised to keep this evening free for some music. And at six your stenographer casually calls me up to say that there will be people for dinner. You can't even find time to telephone yourself."
"Now, Nell, don't be cross. If you listened to our talk, you must have seen how important—"
"Oh, everything is more important than I."
"We'll have our music all right. I'll send the little one to bed."
And then changing into English, Mabel told Yetta that she must be very tired after so much excitement, that they had a hard day before them, and that she had best take a piping-hot bath to make her sleep and turn in at once. Yetta did not understand French, but from Eleanor's tone she had guessed the meaning of "de trop." She wanted very much to stay up and talk with Miss Train, but with a pang in her heart, she followed her docilely into a bedroom, watched her lay out a nightgown and bath-robe, and as docilely followed her into the dazzling bath-room.
"Take it just as hot as you can stand it, and then jump right into bed," Mabel said, and kissed her good night.
Before she was half through with her bath, she began to hear the sound of music. And when she had put on the nightgown and wrapped herself in the bath-robe,—her skin had never felt such soft fabrics,—she opened the door noiselessly and stood a moment unobserved in the hallway. In the front room Mabel was sitting at the piano and Eleanor stood beside her, with closed eyes, a violin tucked lovingly under her chin, and swayed gently to the rhythm of the music. It was one of Chopin's Nocturnes. Yetta did not know what a Nocturne was; the best music she had ever heard had been the cheap orchestras at the Settlement and at the Skirt-Finishers' Ball. Neither Eleanor nor Mabel were great musicians; it would have seemed a commonplace performance to most of us, but to the girl in the bath-robe it sounded beautiful beyond words, the most wondrous thing of all the wonderful new world she had so suddenly entered.
She listened a moment and then tiptoed down the hall to her bedroom. She carefully closed the window, which Mabel had as carefully opened, left her door ajar, so she could hear the music, and climbed in between the soft white sheets. She was very tired, the hot bath had quieted her nerves, and it was while they were playing the third piece, something by Grieg, that she fell asleep. Her last conscious thought was a dreamy, wistful wonder if she could ever become a part, have a real share in so gorgeous a life.