she thought she wanted till the moment came to decide. Ursula pounced on silver foxes and old lacquer as promptly and decisively as on the objects of her surplus sentimentality: she knew at once what she wanted, and valued it more after it was hers.
"And now—I wonder if you couldn't help me choose a grand piano?" she suggested, as the last antiquarian bowed them out.
"A piano?"
"Yes: for Ruan. I'm sending one down for Grace Fulmer. She's coming to stay . . . did I tell you? I want people to hear her. I want her to get engagements in London. My dear, she's a Genius."
"A Genius—Grace!" Susy gasped. "I thought it was Nat. . . ."
"Nat—Nat Fulmer? Ursula laughed derisively. "Ah, of course—you've been staying with that silly Violet! The poor thing is off her head about Nat—it's really pitiful. Of course he has talent: I saw that long before Violet had ever heard of him. Why, on the opening day of the American Artists' exhibition, last winter, I stopped short before his 'Spring Snow-Storm' (which nobody else had noticed till that moment), and said to the Prince, who was with me: 'The man has talent.' But genius—why, it's his wife who has genius! Have you never heard Grace play the violin? Poor Violet, as usual, is off on the wrong tack. I've given Fulmer my garden-house to do—no
