“But about six o’clock James Wallace telephoned from the park and told me all about it.  He wanted you found and sent to Ravinia at once.  Having wasted half the season and more, they’re now quite frantic over the thought of losing a minute.  And Jimmy says immensely enthusiastic.  So, all you have to do now is to go up there and lord it over them.  You’ll hear it sung; you’ll hear the orchestra play it.  You will make a beginning toward coming into your own, my dear.  Because even if you don’t care for it as you did, it will be a step toward—­the princess, won’t it?”

She dropped back against the cushion as from weariness, and sudden tears brimmed into her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.  He came to her at that in spite of the gesture that would have held him away.

“You must believe—­it’s nothing—­but happiness,” she gasped.

He sat down upon the arm of the chair and a little timidly took her in his hands, caressed her eyes and her wet face until at last she met his lips in a long kiss and sank back quieted.

He stayed on the chair arm however and their hands remained clasped through a recollecting silence.  She said presently: 

“There are two or three practical things for you to remember.  You mustn’t be irritated with Violet Williamson.  She has let herself become a little more sentimental about Fournier than I think in the beginning she meant to be and you may find her under foot more than you like.  You mustn’t mind that.  And you’ll find a very friendly helper in James Wallace.  There is something a little caustic about his wit, and he suspects musicians on principle; but he will like you and he’s thoroughly committed to The Outcry.  He is a very good French scholar and over difficulties with the translation, where passages have to be changed, he’ll be a present help.”

He took her face in both his hands and turned it up to him.  “Mary,” he demanded when their eyes met, “why are you saying good-by to me?”

CHAPTER XXIV

THE WHOLE STORY

The shot told.  The harried, desperate look of panic with which she gazed at him and tried, tugging at his hands, to turn away, revealed to him that he had leaped upon the truth.  Part of it anyhow.  He closed his eyes, for an instant, for another unaddressed prayer that he might not falter nor let himself be turned aside until he had sounded the full depth of it.

When he looked at her again she had recovered her poise.  “It was silly,” she said, “to think that I could hide that from you.  I am going away—­to-morrow.  For quite a long while.”

“Are you going away—­physically?  In the ordinary literal sense, I mean; or is it that you are just—­going away from me?”

Once more it was as if a trap had been sprung upon her.  But this time he ignored the gasp and the sudden cold slackness of the hands he held and went on speaking with hardly a pause.