"I can see Paula when you told her that," Mary reflected. "Or did you
make dad tell her himself? Yes, of course you did! Only what I can't
understand is why Paula didn't say, 'All right. Have your party, and I'll
sing if you want me to. Only not--what's his name?--March's songs.' And
have him all to herself, as she wanted him, later. That would have been
mate in one move, I should think."

Then, at the fleeting look she caught in the act of vanishing from her
aunt's face, she cried, "You mean she _did_ say that? And that father
turned to ice, the way he can and--made a point of it? You know it's
serious, if he's done that."

With a vigor meant to compensate for a sad lack of conviction, Miss
Wollaston protested against this chain of unwarranted assumptions. But
she admitted, at last, that her own surmise accorded with that of her
niece. John certainly had said to her at breakfast that he saw no reason
for foregoing the musical feature of the evening simply because an
audience was to be present to hear it. Paula's only comment had been a
dispassionate prediction that it wouldn't work. It wouldn't be fair to
say she sulked; her rather elaborate detachment had been too good-humored
for that. Her statement, at lunch, that she was to be turned on like a
Victrola at half past nine, was a fair sample.

"What's he like, this genius of hers?" Mary wanted to know. "Young and
downy and helpless, I suppose. With a look as if he was just about to
burst into tears. I met one like that last winter." She knew exactly how
to get results out of her aunt.

"He's not in the least like that! If he had been I should never have