He hated Puccini and spoke rather disrespectfully of Wagner as a spell-binder.  He liked Wolf-Ferrari pretty well; the modern he was really crazy about was Montemezzi.  But he had made her sing oceans of Gluck,—­both the Iphigenia and Euridice.  It was awfully funny too because he would sing the other parts wherever they happened to lie, tenor, bass, contralto, anything, in the most awful voice you ever heard, though his speaking voice was lovely.  Let John just wait until he heard it.  It was almost as nice as his own.  Oh, he was coming back again some time.  He had promised to bring over some songs of his own composing for her to try.

It was at this point or thereabouts that John precipitated a crisis by asking how much this paragon of a piano tuner had charged her for his professional services.  Paula stared at him, stricken.

“Why,” she said, “I don’t believe I paid him anything.  I know I didn’t.  I never thought of it at all.  Neither did he, for that matter though, I’m sure of it.”

This provoked Lucile into an outburst, rare with her, of outspoken indignation.  The man, delinquent as he had been in the matter of the drawing-room piano, became once more her protege, her soldier whom she had found in the park and attempted to do a kindness to.  Paula had kept him fussing over her piano all day and then let him go without, for all she knew, money enough to buy his supper or procure a lodging for the night.

John, though he made less commotion about it, took his wife’s negligence even more seriously for he set about attempting to repair it.  “You’re quite sure,” he asked in his crisp, consulting-room manner—­a manner Paula was happily unfamiliar with—­“You’re quite sure he told you nothing about himself beyond his bare name?  You’ve got that right, haven’t you?  Anthony March?”

“Yes,” said Paula uncertainly, “I’m absolutely sure of that.”

Had he any insignia on his uniform?—­little bronze numerals on his collar—­anything like that that she could remember?  That would tell them what organization he belonged to and might give them a clue.

Here Lucile got drawn into the inquisition.  She had seen him and talked to him.  Had she noticed anything of the sort?  But Lucile had not.  She had, naturally, deferred all inquiries until he came to tune the piano; and had she been called as she felt she should have been....

But John, it appeared, was not interested in pursuing that line.  He turned back to Paula.  “I wish you’d begin at the beginning, my dear, at the time you let him into the house, and try to remember as nearly as you can everything that you said to him and that he said to you.  He may have said something casually that you didn’t remark at the time which would be of the greatest help to us now.”

Paula wasn’t very hopeful of obtaining any result in this way, but she dutifully went to work trying to think.  She was perfectly amiable about it all.  Presently her husband prompted her.  “How did he happen to tell you what his name was?  Can you remember that?”