"If I can help you out at any time, don't fail to press me into service."
"I may keep you to that offer."
The other girls, including Juliet Hoyt, considered Dr. Paul much too elderly to be interesting, and at his appearance generally betook themselves to the Hoyts' rooms, where the more frivolous company of schoolboys suited their tastes. Nan, therefore, was often left to do the honors if her mother and aunt were not at hand, and Nan, be it said, did not consider it a hardship, for she liked Dr. Paul, and often when Mrs. Corner and Miss Helen returned from an early concert they would find the two laughing and talking together most happily. Nan liked the Hoyts and enjoyed the nonsense which went on in their sitting-room where there were seldom less than two or three boys, but her love of music was too real for her not wanting to escape from a series of dances banged out to rag-time measure.
"It is more than I can stand," she told Dr. Paul. "A little rag-time is jolly enough, and I am not so superior as to despise it altogether, but a whole evening of it is more than I can stand."
"Yet even that is better than some other kinds," responded Dr. Paul. "There happens to be a man at our pension who at home has the reputation of being an accomplished musician because he professes to play classical music. He comes from some small town, and his companions are evidently not among the elect. He does play execrably. I wish you could hear him."
"I don't," interrupted Nan laughing. "I know the kind. I suppose he will keep right on for the rest of his life as he has begun, varying his performance sometimes by bringing in a bit of improvisation, terrible improvisation which has no rhyme, reason, melody or anything else. I know such a person who blandly told me she sometimes altered Chopin and Beethoven to suit herself. Fancy! Oh, I know your man will cheerfully keep on, not knowing the difference between good music and bad, and because he has always associated with rag-time people who think any one who plays anything heavier than Hiawatha must have a standard so high that ordinary mortals cannot venture to criticise the performance."
"I perceive you are acquainted with the species. Yet, after all, I sometimes think it is a pity to know too much about music, for one certainly has a narrower range of enjoyment."
"But think of the quality of it."
"I wonder if it is really more than that of a man I used to know at college who would say, 'Give me a bag of peanuts and an interesting book and I'll enjoy myself.' Why, I read half of 'Les Miserables' at one sitting."
"For peanuts read candy, and you will have about the speech of a schoolmate of mine."