slackened her pace a little in order not to pass him. There was something
unmilitary about the look of him that mildly amused her. It was not that
he slouched nor shuffled nor that he was ill-made, though he was probably
one of those unfortunates whom issue uniforms never fit. He carried a
little black leather satchel, and it broke over Paula that here perhaps
was Lucile's piano tuner. She half formed the intention to stay away
another hour or two until he should have had time to finish. But he
interfered with that plan by stopping in front of the house and looking
at it as if making up his mind whether to go in.

It was an odd look he had, but distinctly an engaging one. He was not
criticizing the architecture, if so it could be called, of the
house-front. Yet there was a sort of comfortable detachment about him
which precluded the belief that it was a mere paralyzing shyness that
held him there.

Paula abandoned her intention of walking by. She stopped instead as she
came up to him and said, "Are you coming in here? If you are, I'll let
you in." She fished an explanatory latch-key out of her wrist-bag as she
went up the steps.

"Why," he said, "I believe this is the house where I'm expected to
tune a piano."

In the act of thrusting home her key, Paula stopped short, turned
irrepressibly and stared at him. She was one of that very small number of
American-born singers who take the English language seriously and she
knew good speech when she heard it. It was one of the qualities which had
first attracted her to Doctor John. This man's speaking voice would have
arrested her attention pleasantly anywhere. Coming from the private