“Of course you have, living in a small town and with those eyes! Who was he—not the constable? I could believe anything of you, Thurley, but that!” Ernestine was kindly and teasing all in one.
“Just a nice boy,” she said with an effort, “but I gave him up.”
“You did wisely. It is the trying to delude ourselves to clutch with one hand for a laurel wreath and for orange blossoms with the other. That is what makes us failures on both sides of the question. You must see Collin’s lovely country place up the Hudson, and we must go to some lectures together. Besides, you have all Europe to exclaim over. I’m going to walk through Spain next summer. Come along?”
“I’d love to if—if I have the money—”
“We’ll find the money. You must do these things. Bliss is making a little machine out of you with his blessed, idealistic self, hidden like a monk under his habit. Never mind—bright days for Young America—want to hear me play?”
“Would you, really?”
“Listen!” Rising, she went to the piano and began “The Two Larks,” gliding from that into some things of Grieg.
When she finished, Thurley, ruthlessly scattering cake crumbs, came beside her. The timid country girl had vanished. She was the wild-rose Thurley with the “fire, dash, touch of strangeness.”
“Let me sing for you! You can tell me the truth, better than Mr. Hobart. Oh, but you can!” she begged.
Ernestine pointed to the shelves of music, but Thurley shook her head.