Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/42

32 going afterwards to get hot chocolate somewhere, and all of a sudden it flashed over me, 'Why, I just love art galleries!

"And 'Madame Butterfly'?"

"Yes, the same way," she told him. "I thought I'd forgotten all about it, except the fat woman who sat in front of us, and how she hadn't gotten the powder on even, on the back of her neck; but one day last summer the orchestra at the hotel where mother—where we—were staying, played a piece that I knew I'd heard before, and I peeked over the violinist's shoulder, and found out what it was. And all of a sudden I saw that lovely Japanese lady in the beautiful white satin kimono on her porch with the pink sky beyond, singing about her baby. The orchestra played it lots of times after that. I asked them to, and it's my favorite piece of music now."

Laurel's father looked away from her. Some of his seeds, then, had taken root and were growing. Even among thorns! He must plant and plant and plant, then, while it was still the planting season.

that same night, in Laurel's room at the hotel, Stephen sat down beside her by the reading-lamp, and glanced through the pile of books he had selected for her. "Idyls of the King" was one of the books.

"What do you say we save this one to read out loud in the woods?" he inquired.

Laurel, sunk in a soft deep armchair, the fitted work-basket in her lap, the box of candy open on the table near by, didn't hear him apparently.