'Sing another verse first,' said Madame Jaretzka quietly, 'and we'll pass judgment afterwards. But I wasn't asleep, was I, Tom?' And, following the direction of her eyes, Tony started, and turned round. 'I shut my eyes to listen better,' she added, almost impatiently. 'Now, please go on; we want to hear the rest.'
'Of course,' said Tom, in as natural a tone as possible. 'Of course we do. What is it?' he asked.
'Mary Coleridge—the words,' replied Tony, turning to the piano again. 'In a moment of aberration I thought I could write the music for it——' The softness and passion had left his voice completely.
'Oh, the tune is yours?'
His cousin nodded. There was a little frown between the watching eyes upon the sofa. 'Tom, you mustn't interrupt; it spoils the mood—the rhythm,' and she again asked Tony to go on. The difference in the two tones she used was too obvious to be missed by any man who heard them—the veiled exasperation and—the tenderness.
Tony obeyed at once. Striking a preliminary chord as the stool swung round, he said for Tom's benefit, 'To me there's tragedy in the words, real tragedy, so I tried to make the music fit it. Madame Jaretzka doesn't agree.' He glanced towards her; her eyes were closed again; her face, Tom thought, was like a mask. Tony did not this time use the little name.
The next verse began, then suddenly broke off. The voice seemed to fail the singer. 'I don't like this one,' he exclaimed, a suspicion of trembling in his tone. 'It's rather too awful. Death comes in, the bread at the feast turns black, the hound falls down—and so on. There's general disaster. It's too tragic, rather. I'll sing the last verse instead.'
'I want to hear it, Tony. I insist,' came the command from the sofa. 'I want the tragic part.'
To Tom it seemed precisely as though the voice had said, 'I want to see Tom suffer. He knows the meaning of it. It's right, it's good, it's necessary for him.'
Tony obeyed. He sang both verses: