"I—I'm a high-school graduate, but not exactly a college student. I mean—I'm a music student. Voice."
"You doan' tell me! Now ain't that a coinstidance! For why you think I should have this room empty if not my own baby daughter is in Europe with her voice! For three years already, with her gone, miss, and my husband's daughter down to her bookkeeping all day, as I tell him, it's like my heart will burst from the silence."
"There is something I had better explain—"
"I want a young girl in the house again, I tell him."
Standing there, the words pressing for utterance against her very teeth,
Lilly swallowed them back again.
"I see," she said, smiling her misery. "Then I'm afraid—I—"
"We're used to a young girl. You read maybe of our daughter only in last
Sunday's papers. Millie du Gass, with the Milan Opera?"
Lilly had. "Millie du Gass—your daughter!"
"We got more only last night from her in 'Traviata.' They pulled her carriage after the opera. Felix Auchinloss went special from Vienna to conduct her. That's her picture there and there and there. Say, ain't that a coinstidance you should be a voice!"
Lilly stood regarding one of the framed photographs. A lifted young profile, ever so slightly of the father's aquilinity, a vocal-looking swell to the bosom, and a chin that locked up prettily to the protuberant upper lip.