So instead of answering her brother's question, she sat a little
straighter in her chair, and compressed her lips.

He smiled faintly at that and added, "Anyhow she said she'd be along in a
minute or two."

"Oh," said Miss Wollaston, "you have wakened her then. I would have
suggested that the poor child be left asleep this morning."

Now he saw that she had something to tell him. "Nothing went wrong last
night after I left, I hope."

"Oh, not wrong," Miss Wollaston conceded, "only the Whitneys went of
course, when you did and the Byrnes, and Wallace Hood, but Portia Stanton
and that new husband of hers stayed. It was his doing, I suppose. You
might have thought he was waiting all the evening for just that thing to
happen. They went up to Paula's studio--Paula invited me, of course, but
I excused myself--and they played and sang until nearly two o'clock this
morning. It was all perfectly natural, I suppose. And still I did think
that Paula might have sung earlier, down in the drawing-room when you
asked her to."

"She was perfectly right to refuse." He caught his sister up rather short
on that, "I shouldn't have asked her. It was very soon after dinner. They
weren't a musical crowd anyway, except Novelli. It's utterly unfair to
expect a person like Paula to perform unless she happens to be in the
mood for it. At that she's extremely amiable about it; never refuses
unless she has some real reason. What her reason was last night, I don't
know, but you may be perfectly sure it was sufficient."