He talked very quietly, looking at her gravely from time to time through his gold-rimmed glasses. And maybe it was just to get rid of her politely, but at the end, he went over to the best piano in the store and, sitting down at it, began to play.

Mary didn’t know much about music, though she liked to sing. She’d heard people play the piano in the theater, and in a saloon of course, but she’d never heard anything like this. He played a Beethoven sonata, and she listened entranced, by the beauty of the music and by its power. And she watched Hans with fascination, too. His skill was remarkable, and his hands beautiful, but even more intriguing was the transformation that came over his face. She saw concentration, absolute concentration, intelligence—and a sort of remove. For when he played, she realized, he entered another world. It wasn’t a world she knew anything about, but she could see that Hans had just gone there, right in front of her, and she was enchanted. She hadn’t realized how fine he was.

And suddenly a thought came into her mind. All her childhood, she’d heard the priests speak of angels, and she’d always thought of them like the ones she’d seen in paintings, with placid faces and unlikely wings. But seeing his face now, she thought, no—this must be what an angel is like, full of beauty, and spirit, intelligence and power.

“You should play for a living,” she said to him, when he had finished and returned to earth.

“Oh no,” he said, with a touch of sadness, “you should hear the real pianists.” He smiled kindly. “I have to get back to work now, Mary.”

Ten days later, she and Gretchen had taken a pleasure-boat trip into the harbor, and he had joined them. Whether it was his idea, or Gretchen’s, she didn’t know, but he’d been very easy and friendly, and they’d had a good time.

Some time after that, when Gretchen had casually asked her what she thought of her cousin, Mary had laughed and said, “I’d like to marry him.” But she wished she hadn’t, for Gretchen had frowned and looked at the ground, and Mary had realized the truth. What a fool I am, she’d thought, to be dreaming of such a thing, when I haven’t a cent to my name. A clever young man like that needed a wife with some money.

The trouble was that whenever she met young men after this, they always seemed so crude and coarse by comparison.

And then there’d been the man that Sean proposed.