“Dad caught that all right without waiting for me to translate it.  What he wanted to get at, right at the jump off, was whether Paula knew LaChaise had come down to talk about her.  Was he to consider Mr. LaChaise her emissary?  I took a chance on emissaire for that and it worked all right.

“Well, the Frenchman said, as cool as you please, that he was.  Said he wouldn’t have ventured to intrude otherwise:—­and dad froze to ice right there.  But LaChaise went on and spoke his piece just the same.  He said he’d come to-night to verify the enthusiastic reports he had heard of her singing but that she had outdone them all.  He said the voice itself was unusual, of great power and of beautiful quality, adequate in range for anything that could be expected of her.  But he said that was only the beginning of it.  The important things were that she was a real musician in the first place and a woman with real passions in the second.

“I didn’t know whether to translate that to dad or to shut the Frenchman up myself right there.  I would have liked to take a punch at him.  But, of course, you’re nothing but a part of the machinery when you are interpreting, so I handed it on, without looking at dad.  All he said was, ‘We’ll get to the point, if you please, Monsieur.’

“LaChaise understood that without waiting for me.  He said he had had no hesitation in offering Paula a contract to sing the leading dramatic soprano roles at Ravinia this summer and that he had told her if it worked anywhere near as well as he expected it to there was no doubt of her getting a good Metropolitan engagement next season.  He finished up by saying he had had to ask her to make a decision as soon as possible because he was at that moment negotiating with some one else who couldn’t be put off very long.

“Dad asked then whether Paula had given him an answer to-night.  LaChaise told him she had accepted—­subject to his obtaining dad’s consent.  Then he finished up with a full-dress bow.  ’That is the point you have asked me to come to, Monsieur,’ he said.

“Dad never said a word for a minute.  You could see it must have been ghastly for him.  I guess LaChaise must have seen it himself, for he went on and tried to soften it down a bit.  Said he didn’t want to seem to brusque the affair.  All he wanted to ask dad to-night was that he should agree to consider the matter, bearing in mind that a real artist like madame, his wife, couldn’t be kept shut up in a brass tower indefinitely.

“Dad cut him off rather short on that.  He said that from a legal or business point of view, which was all that could possibly concern LaChaise, his consent wasn’t necessary.  If his wife signed a contract he would put no obstacles in the way of her fulfilling it.  Beyond that he had obviously nothing to say.

“Well, that was about all.  They both put on all the trimmings saying good night to each other and LaChaise thanked me very handsomely for interpreting.  I chucked him into his overcoat and let him out the front door.—­And bolted it after him, you bet!  Lord, but I hated to go back to dad after that.