The actress in Thurley rescued her so that she could say, “Of course, that’s all left behind. No use being like a story-book girl unless you have a s-story-book heart. Now it’s time for Mr. Hobart’s lesson, mia, so I’m off. I wish you’d let me walk sometimes or take a subway! I’m tired of being whirled away in taxis! Why, I haven’t even had a moment alone at Grant’s Tomb,” laughing in spite of herself.
Miss Clergy smiled. “I’m so proud of you!” she declared. “If I had only found you years ago—”
“I tried to find you,” Thurley reminded.
“Ah, but you didn’t sing that day! If you had, everything would have changed for us both. When you sing, Thurley, the world is yours—”
Thurley was at the mirror fitting on a high black hat with a bunch of old-blue plumes. “Do you think any one would love me, if I could not sing?” she demanded impetuously.
Miss Clergy became confused. “Dear me, Thurley, I cannot think of you as separate from your voice. There would be no Thurley if there were no Thurley voice.”
Thurley trilled a scale or so. She was thinking of a black-haired lad who had said many’s the time, “Hang your voice, Thurley! It’s you I love—just you!” Pink linen and old-fashioned parlor organs did have compensations.
“When you come back, we’ll plan about our real home,” Miss Clergy added. “My lawyers try to impress on me what a neglectful person I’ve been. They want me to mend my ways and spend my money—not be a sort of Hetty Green always travelling about with a little satchel of securities!” Miss Clergy’s sense of humor was reviving with the rest.
“Our real home—besides the Fincherie? You’ll never give that up?”
Miss Clergy frowned. “Not the Fincherie! I mean here in New York. We can’t go on living in a hotel. It is too common, too parvenu. I want the right sort of home for you, the sort that your ability will deserve.”