“No, it is like anything worth while. It takes much personal endeavor to get it started. When Caleb has begun to wear alpaca house-coats and put bird-houses in all his trees and talk of the uplift and vegetable diets, Ernestine can safely scamper back to her piano and play as she never has before.... They, too, are proving my vision,” he added.
“So is Collin with his wife Polly, and Mark, so would Sam Sparling had he been able to stay among us. It is a simple thing to prove when you really understand the compensations.”
“And Mark has proved the falseness of Lissa’s love and—”
“You are talking like an old-fashioned valentine. Dear, dear, this will never do.” She fastened her dull red cape with its banding of fur.
“Don’t go, I’ve so many things to tell you. I used to be afraid to whisper my ideas to any one; therefore, they were useless. And now, I simply won’t allow myself to keep an idea over night. I must tell it to you—and have you prove it out.... Thurley, do you remember the day at Blessed Memory when we walked to the sea and—”
She looked at her watch. “I must go, Bliss, I’ve promised to say good-by to Caleb and Ernestine and to see how much Collin has done on his statue—Polly says it is wonderful.”
He escorted her to the door, but before he opened it he said in serious tone, “Are you going to flirt with Dan again?”
“Always! I adore him as I adore no one else! He is an inspiration and a Punch and Judy show all in one,” adding as she slipped away, “Perhaps we were talking at cross purposes. I mean Dan junior!”
The night she returned to the Fincherie she gave a concert for Ali Baba and his Forty Thieves in the newly added community room, some of the village hearing of the event and straying in to listen.
Not until the end of the programme did she see Dan Birge and Lorraine. Impulsively, Thurley sang, “Coming Through the Rye,” looking at them in whole-souled friendship.