"I am not enjoying the concert any the less because I am writing to you. The orchestra is playing the Romeo and Juliet overture—Tschaikowsky's, and delicious chills are running up and down my spine. The nicest thing about music is that one doesn't have to think about it while it plays. One may think what one pleases and the music glorifies one's little thoughts. I feel now as if I were an elf swinging to one of the prisms of the chandelier under the ceiling. Did you ever feel like that? I wonder if things will ever arrange themselves so that you and I can go to a concert together like regular friends. But I forgot—for some reason you do not want to be friends. I do not understand that part of your letter. It grieves me.
"I must tell you I have made a plan for us to meet to-night—we need not meet as friends, but just to talk business. Our maid Nina is devoted to me, and I can depend on her absolutely. Fortunately it happens to be the custom in our family that each one's room is his castle. We lock our doors when we retire, and no one thinks of disturbing another except in case of necessity. Well, when everybody is safe in bed I shall dress myself in some of Nina's clothes—since my former disguise seemed to shock you so terribly, and Nina will let me out by the service entrance. There is a separate servant's stairway and elevator in this building. And she will let me in again when I come home. Let the driver be waiting for me in Ninety-fourth Street, say, at eleven, for we go to bed early. Don't you come yourself, the risk is too great. I particularly forbid you to come. Arrange a suitable place for us to meet, and we will decide what must be done.
"Silly! the reason I stay where I am is very simple; I have no other place to go. Mamma is the only friend I have in America barring yourself. I am not at all prudish, but I couldn't very well—well, could I?
"They are playing D'Apres Midi d'un Faun now.
"Your rejected friend,
"Amy."
CHAPTER X
AMY'S STORY
Greg's immediate impulse was to confide in Bessie Bickle. That good soul looked interested but dubious.
"Will she have her boy's pants on?" she demanded.
"No," said Greg smiling.