"Oh, if Mrs. Weatherbee is not here!" breathed Jane. Then she tidied up her belongings, and prepared to be ushered in, if that good fortune came her way next.
She must plead for Wellington. And perhaps she would be able to do so more effectively than she had supposed. The girl with the fur scarf and great bundle of music was coming out smiling. Her interview had been satisfactory, Jane guessed, and very likely it had to do with a musical ambition. Jane hoped so.
Her own card was in her hand when the secretary approached. That functionary took it with a pleasant nod and disappeared. Jane felt just a little nervous. She had secretly hoped Mrs. Weatherbee would appear in time for the interview.
"Miss Allen!" called the attendant, and Jane self-consciously followed into the sanctum.
The soft luxury of the room was almost lost upon Jane, so intent was she on her mission, and so fascinated was her gaze by the living picture sitting in the small mahogany chair. This was Mme. Nalasky. She smiled so frankly as Jane approached, the latter's embarrassment was swept away in her all-embracing welcome.
"Oh, my dear little girl," spoke the noted singer, with a distinctly foreign accent. "What can I do for you?" After a preliminary word of explanation Jane briefly told of the Golden Jubilee Concert.
"Oh, yes, I have been informed by your honored president. I know of him for many years--that is, quite many." She corrected herself, for one could see the woman was young, and very charming in her blonde, fair beauty.
Jane then attempted to tell of the talent already secured, and being somewhat at a loss to guarantee, as yet, anything like a brilliant array, to support so noted an artist as Mme. Nalasky, she ventured to suggest that a young girl at college would play the violin, and Jane declared further, this young girl was quite a promising artist.
In this Madam was at once interested. "I always like to hear of the young stars," she said. "Sometimes a very little star comes out wonderfully when all the cobwebs in her sky have been cleared away."
Thus encouraged, Jane unfolded quite a story of Helen's achievement. Then she remembered the Bugle. Therein had been expressed a view of Helen's ability, better than Jane could hope to recount, so without a thought, other than that to benefit the concert, Jane drew from her bag the copy of the Bugle, with its bewildering arraignment of Helen's power.