"No; it is only my rhetorical method. I shall bring you up with a round turn, before you know it. Well, granted that we represent the two classes, the creative and the interpretive, which is the greater?"
"How can we tell, unless you stand back to back?" Sally inquired.
But by this time, Bobby was fairly launched.
"The fact is, you singers and players have a smug little fashion of forgetting that there is a composer back of you. You don't sing extempore, Thayer, make up the song as you go along. You're nothing more than a species of elocutionist, you know, trying to show the people who weren't on the spot what the composer really did when he created the thing."
"Animated phonograph records, in short?" Thayer suggested.
"Yes, if you choose to call it that. Of course you count for something, else every composer could make a set of records and dispense with his interpreting artist once for all. But you fellows honestly do make an awful fuss about yourselves; now don't you?"
"Bobby!" Beatrix protested.
"Oh, yes; but I'm not meaning anything personal," Bobby responded amicably. "We know that Thayer's voice is beyond all odds the best we have heard for a three years. How do you do it, Thayer? You look as calm as a Dutch dolly; but you manage to tear us all to bits. Even I felt sanctified at your recital, and Miss Van Osdel's lashes were freighted with unshed tears."
"That must be one of your next week's scareheads," she objected. "I never cry in public where there are electric lights, Mr. Thayer; it's horribly unbecoming to most women. But I did have to say a nonsense rhyme over to myself, to keep steady."
"Yes, I taught you that trick," Beatrix asserted suddenly. "Lear is very soothing in an emotional crisis. The Rubáiyát for gooseflesh and Lear for tears is my rule. The Jumblies carried me safely through the fifth act of Cyrano. But go on, Bobby. We are nearly ready to change the subject."