She had no assurance that he'd come to the house again of his own accord or that Paula would send for him. But she was in no mood to distress herself just now, even with that possibility.
She crossed the room and got herself a cigarette, and with it alight she returned to her contemplation of the piano keyboard. She didn't move nor speak when she heard Rush come in but she kept an eye on the drawing-room door and when presently he entered, she greeted him with a smile of good-humored mockery. He had something that looked like a battered school atlas in his hand.
"What do you suppose this is?" he asked. "It was lying on the bench in the hall."
She held out a hand for it and together they opened it on the lid of the piano and investigated.
"It's the manuscript of his opera," she said. "He brought it around to leave with Paula. To tell her he had done with it. He's been trying to spoil it for her but he can't."
"I suppose I made an infernal fool of myself," he remarked, after a little silence.
She blew, for answer, an impudent smoke ring up into his face.
He continued grumpily to cover his relief that she had not been more painfully explicit,—"I suppose I shall have to make up some sort of damned apology to him."
"I don't know," she said. "That's as you like. I don't believe he'd insist upon it. He understood well enough."
He looked at her intently. "Has there been any better news from father since I went out?" he asked.