Vickers smiled at the picture of his debut in St. Louis drawing-rooms.
"I will ask my sister to help," he said. "I should like her to call."
Mrs. Conry became suddenly animated, as if after a period of depressing darkness she saw a large ray of sunshine. She had thought of possibilities when she had persuaded her husband to take her to St. Louis, but had not expected them to develop at once.
"You see," she continued quickly, "if I can get a hearing here, it means that other people may want me,—I'll become known, a little."
"My mother couldn't have it," Vickers explained, "nor my sister, because of our mourning. But Mrs. Lawton,—that would be better any way." He thought of Nannie Lawton's love of reclame, and he knew that though she would never have considered inviting the unheralded Mrs. Conry to sing in her drawing-room, she would gladly have him appear there with any one, playing his own music.
"Yes, we'll put it through! The Songs of the Cities." He repeated the words with sentimental visions of the hours of their composition.
"And then I have some more,—Spanish songs. They take, you know! And folk-songs." Mrs. Conry talked on eagerly of her ambitions until Vickers left, having arranged for Isabelle to call the next day. As he took his way to the Lawtons' to use his influence with the volatile Nan in behalf of Mrs. Conry, his memory of their talk was sad. 'America, that's it,' he explained. 'She wants to do something for herself, to get her independence.' And he resolved to leave no stone unturned, no influence unused, to gratify her ambition.
So Isabelle called on Mrs. Conry in company with Nannie Lawton. Vickers little knew what an ordeal the woman he loved was passing through in this simple affair. A woman may present no difficulties to the most fastidiously bred man, and yet be found wanting in a thousand particulars by the women of his social class. As the two emerged from the hotel, Isabelle looked dubiously at Mrs. Lawton.
"Queer, isn't she?" that frank lady remarked. "Oh, she's one of those stray people you run across in Europe. Perhaps she can sing all right, though I don't care. The men will be crazy after her,—she's the kind,—red hair and soft skin and all that…. Better look out for that young brother of yours, Isabelle. She is just the one to nab our innocent Vickie."
Isabelle's report of her call had some reserves.