Sally flung off her hat and sat down at the piano. She was in knickerbockers and a muffin-colored sweater, and looked like a slender boy. She played a chord or two and then sang softly, a bit here and a bit there from popular musical plays. Crispin, leaning over the piano, looked over a pile of songs and found a group of Chinese lyrics. He chose one.
"Do you know this?" he asked.
Sally nodded, and he set it before her. Her fingers rippled an accompaniment, and as her voice was lifted in the haunting melody, one after another of the people in the room stopped talking, and listened.
Among the others Winslow listened, weighing Sally's charms of sprightliness and sophistication against Hildegarde's youth and innocence.
Hildegarde, behind her tea-table, failed to fill the cups. The great room with its gay groups, its gay lights, its great fire, fell away. She and Crispin were once more out under a wide sky—and the wild geese were overhead—
Across the room her eyes met Crispin's. He lifted his hand in recognition of her glance. He, too, re-
