"Really? You are not ill, I hope?"
"Oh, no! I never was better," confessed Winifred.
"You should go above all things to-night," he said. "Mr. Mercer is going to give us parts of the Redemption."
The music was certainly alluring.
"I have left the choir," said Winifred faintly.
Mr. Frothingham never lost his easy self-poise over anything which this jestingly tolerated world offered him, but he allowed himself to be surprised now.
"You are surely not in earnest?" he said. "You of all persons! I thought you were devoted to the choir. You are not going to desert us for some other field of conquest?"
"Oh, no!" said Winifred.
"Have you quarreled with Mercer?" he persisted. "He is cranky sometimes. Shall I fight him?"
Winifred had to laugh at the thought of the handsome, immaculate young man before her in a pugilistic encounter with Mr. Mercer.