"You must come," she said. "Only ten days or so. Surely you can get away. And you'll see your protégé, Mr. Heath."
"My protégé!"
"Well, you were the first to discover him."
"But he's impossible. A charming fellow with undoubted talent, but so bearish about his music. I gave it up, as you know, though I'm always the Heaths' very good friend."
"One song! What's that? And his wife made him compose it. Nobody has ever heard his really fine work, his Te Deum, and his settings of sacred words."
"His wife and mother have, I believe."
"His wife—yes. And she will take care no one else ever does hear them now."
"Why?"
Max Elliot looked at Mrs. Shiffney. Into his big and genial eyes there came an expression of light sarcasm, almost of contempt. He shrugged his shoulders.