It took Charity some time to find Phineas on the party after the concert. She manoeuvred through the jungle of the fancy dresses, holding Helen's and Caroline's hand. She could get a glimpse of his smile for seconds here and there, but everyone wanted to meet him and he had to greet everyone. Once his eyes met Charity's, and he hurried towards his wife with a huge triumphant smile shining on his face. He touched her arm, smiled at the girls.

'Look at this! It worked!' His happiness brightened her face.

'Yes, it did.' She laughed.

'Oh, wait a minute, let me introduce you.' And he dived back into the sea of the crowd, to bring to the surface its most precious pearl.

'Jenny, this is my wife Charity, and these are my girls.'

Jenny Lind was standing there front of her. She nodded warmly, smiled at her. Her beauty struck Charity. Her eyes had the coolest blue colour she has ever seen.

Jenny turned to the girls immediately which surprised her because everyone else here looked through them.

'Of course, I've heard so much about you.' she said and looked at Caroline. 'Your father tells me you're a fan of the ballet.' She looked up at Charity for a moment, and then at Phineas. Charity tried not to stare at her, but her eyes always wandered back to Jenny.

'Yes, I'm studying ballet,' Caroline answered.

'Are you?'

'Of course, I am.'

'And what about you, Helen?'

She knew our daughter's names, Charity surprised. She treated them as equals. This happened so rarely that it would have surprised Charity anyway, especially from someone like her, rich and famous and upper class.

'You look like a princess, Madam.,' Helen said, and she dropped her head back and laughed and Phineas laughed as well and Charity laughed too because what Helen said about Miss Lind was dangerously similar to her own thoughts about her.

Half an hour later.

She was drifting after Caroline and Helen who became more and more tired and bored on the party. 'For myself,' she thought, 'even if the girls wouldn't been here, I couldn't have started a conversation with anyone. I am just a wife, at best case. The worst case are those people who know my parents and look at me with a look that says: "You were meant to belong here, but you threw it all away. How ungrateful. How horrible." Well, it's better than spending all my evenings on parties like this.'

The girls were playing with some decoration when she heard Phineas's voice.

'I'd like you to meet Charity's parents. Mr and Mrs Hallett.'

She turned around in an instant. Oh, please, don't. But it was too late.

'Ah, a pleasure. Nice to meet you.' She heard Jenny's crystal voice.

Charity stepped closer, pulling Caroline and Helen after her.

'Mother,' she said. She knew that the fear and embarrassment in her voice were obvious.

Her mother looked at her with surprise.

'Hello, dear.' Mrs Hallett looked at her with the same longing she felt after her mother. She missed her mother badly when she got past her anger about her father. And there was he. He didn't even look at her daughter directly, just from the corner of his eye and coughed something which she couldn't call a greeting even with the best intentions. Her mother's eyes wandered to the girls, who were standing before their mum embarrassedly.

'Are these?'

'Yes, those are your granddaughters,' Phineas answered. 'How couldn't he feel that it was all wrong?' Charity wondered.

'Phineas, not here,' she begged quietly.

But he wouldn't stop, of course. He was drunk with the success of the night. He provoked her father. She put her hands on the girl's shoulder and went toward the gate. She heard Phineas call her name, first commandingly, then pleadingly. She didn't look up at him. Jenny started a toast in the sudden silence.

She sat in a cart with the girls and headed home. She was just looking out through the window in silence. She felt Caroline's and Helen's scared gaze on her, then they started whispering to each other. Charity wanted to comfort them, she knew she had to explain it to them, but she couldn't yet. Not until they get home.

Jenny was relieved when the Halletts left, but then everyone looked at them, the room fell into silence, Charity hurried out and Phineas tried to stop his wife and despite the fact that the three - was it four? - glasses of champagne went into her head, Jenny knew the disaster was close.

She grabbed a bottle, filled her glass and broke the silence.

'Well, Phineas, I believe I told you that free champagne is a recipe for disaster.' As she raised her voice she realised that she was tipsy. She cursed quietly (but at least in Swedish).

'Now would everyone please raise their glasses to Mr Barnum - ' she looked at Phineas who looked after Charity with a miserable puppy face '-who has shown once and for all that a man's station is limited only by his imagination.'

The people seemed to forget the incident in a blink of an eye and greeted Phineas cheerfully. He broke out of his frozenness and thanked the people. Jenny looked after Charity, but she was already gone, she realised with a faint sadness. She seemed really nice, she thought.

Suddenly Phineas was next to her.

'Thank you,' he said as he looked into Jenny's eyes. The world turned around her within a second as she remembered how he looked at her on the stage. She has to be careful, very careful. And yet, her stupid tipsy head had other plans.

'It's hard to understand wealth and privilege when you born into it.' Phineas laughed uncomfortably, he clearly wanted to drop the topic and she should have, she thought, oh, how she should have.

'I sometimes don't feel like I belong here,' she whispered, leaning close to him. Dangerously close.

'You?' he asked. He was clearly way soberer than herself, she realized. She saw that he's not sure whether he wants to hear her story, but he was too polite and she was too brave, and she wanted to share her secret with him.

'I was born out of wedlock and that put a shame upon my family. Life always manages to remind me that I don't deserve a place in this world and that leaves a hole that no ovation can ever fill.'

Phineas looked for words when they heard some laughing over a side door. He left her there, hurried to the door.

When he came back, he requited the toast but after that Jenny felt that he avoided her, so she counted the minutes back until the end of the party.