"Let me do something," said Rose, with her appealing grace. "I'll sing for them."
That accounted for her again, Electra thought, the unconsidered ease, perhaps the boldness. She belonged to public life; yet as such she might well be taken into account.
"What do you sing?" she asked.
Rose forgot all about her picture and sat up, looking quite in earnest. Peter held his brush reproachfully poised.
"I tell you what I can do," she said, after a moment's thinking. "I can give a little talk on contemporary music—what they are doing in France, in Germany. I can give some personal data about living musicians—things they wouldn't mind. And I really sing very well. Peter, boy, tell the lady I sing well."
"She sings adorably," said Peter. "She has a nightingale in her throat:—
"'Two larks and a thrush,
All the birds in the bush.'
"You never heard anything more sympathetic. I never did."
The "Peter, boy," had spoiled it. Electra grew colder. She wished she were able to be as easy as she liked; but she never could be, with other people perpetually doing and saying things in such bad taste.
"The club is composed of ladies who know the best music," she heard herself saying, and realized that it sounded like a child's copy-book.