in fact, so far as the three musicians were concerned, nothing was
required of them, not even silence. As an audience they ceased to exist.
They were dissolved once more into their social elements and began a
little feverishly to talk.

The realization broke over Mary with the intensity of panic that some one
of them might speak to her. She rose blindly and slipped out into the
hall, but even there she did not feel safe. Some of them, any of them,
might follow her. She wanted to hide. There was a small room adjoining
the studio--it had been the nurse's bedroom when the other had been the
nursery--and its door now stood ajar. She slipped within and closed it
very softly behind her.

Here in the grateful half-dark she was safe enough although the door into
the studio was also part way open. There was nothing in here but
lumber--an old settee, a bookcase full of discarded volumes from the
library and an overflow of Paula's music. No one would think of looking
for her in here.

But as she turned her back upon the door that she had just closed, she
saw that some one was here, a man in khaki sitting on the edge of that
old settee, leaning forward a little, his hands clasped between his
knees. She had come in so quietly he had not heard her.

It seemed to her afterward that she must have had two simultaneous and
contradictory ideas as to who he was. She knew,--she must have known,
instantly--that he was Anthony March, but his uniform suggested Rush and
drew her over toward him just as though she had actually believed him to
be her brother. And then as he became aware of her and glanced up, Paula
in the other room began singing the last song over again, her great broad