"Thank you," said Barbara. "Next week we'll see if we can't really get somewhere."
"We shall try," said Blizzard. He turned at the door. "I want to play for you some time," he said. "May I?"
"Why, yes--of course."
"At my place," he said. "I have a new piano in; it's very good. You see, I pound four or five of them to pieces in the course of a year. I thought perhaps you'd bring two or three or more of your friends who like music, I know you do. I'll give you supper. Your friends might think it was a good slumming spree to come to a concert at my house. And I particularly want to play for you. I go for weeks without playing, and then the wish comes."
She longed to ask him how he worked the pedals, and had to bite the question back.
He laughed, reading her mind. "If you come," he said, "I will try to make you forget what I am--even what I look like. I should like you to know what I might have been--what I still might be." He went out abruptly and closed the door after him.
Barbara mused for a minute and then rang for Bubbles. "I'm going out of town for over Sunday," she said. "What will you do?"
"Me and Harry," said he, "is going down to the sea swimming."
"Please give Harry my best wishes, Bubbles."
The great eyes held hers for a minute and were turned away. He was sharp enough to know that through one of his idols the other had been hurt. And he found the knowledge sorrowful and heavy.