"Ah!" she said. "You have listened to my singing, and with pleasure? And it is truly for my singing that you give me this, and not because you are sorry for me?"
And Pauline, remembering how often the tired voice, strained to a high, uncertain pitch, sounding across the water like a cry for succour, had filled her with compassion, could say with truth; "Signora, your singing has touched our hearts."
As May stood upon the balcony, gazing far out over the lagoon, her young eyes undazzled by the intense mid-day light, she thought how sweet it would be to see again that look of grateful pleasure upon the worn face. Ah, she would sing! How she would sing! She would sing the heart into those people in the gondolas; she would sing the money out of their purses! The gondolas should gather about her till the water was black with them. She would sing till the night rang with the sound of her voice! A sense of power had come into her, which she had never felt before. She should take command of those musicians, she should take command of that mysterious, floating audience. No one would know her; she should not know herself. For one splendid hour she should be set free of herself.
It was the first time in her life that May Beverly had found herself mastered by an enthusiasm. The consciousness of it suddenly seized her and tilled her with a curious misgiving. She knelt down upon the floor of the balcony, and, leaning her forehead against the cushion of the balustrade, she tried to collect her thoughts, to regain her balance.
She wondered if she were very foolish, if it were a mere outbreak of shallow vanity that ought to be suppressed. She hoped not. Of course this thing that she wanted to do was shockingly unconventional. Anywhere else, under any other circumstances, it would be out of character; but here in Venice everything was different. She tried to shut out the magic city from her thoughts,—to return to a perfectly normal state of mind.
The hour was very still, even the doves had fallen silent. For a few seconds, as she knelt with covered eyes in her high balcony, only one sound reached her ears; but that was the dip of an oar, the very heart-beat of Venice. It had the intimate, penetrating power of a whispered incantation; it touched and quickened the imagination more than peal of bells or chant of marching priests. And as she knelt and listened the young girl felt a scorn of the past and its limitations and its trivial satisfactions—its petty reference of everything to a small, personal standard. The great outer world was knocking at the door of her heart, the world of suffering, and the world of joy, the world of romance, and the world of real human experience.
She would sing to-night; she would let her own personality go, and be just a human creature doing a daring, inspiring thing for the sake of another human creature who was in need. With a sense of exultant self-surrender she lifted her face and looked up at the Salute. Its domes and pinnacles had been hidden by the low-hanging awning, but now, with her eyes on a level with the balustrade, she could see the lovely temple in all its gracious outlines.
"And I remember I used to wonder whether I liked it," she thought to herself, with a singular feeling, as if she had been recalling a past state of existence.
She rose to her feet and stepped inside. A pile of sheet music lay upon the table, and she stood a few minutes beside it, turning over the leaves and humming softly to herself. There was a rap at the door, and Uncle Dan appeared.
At once her mood had changed. She was Polly, and here was Uncle Dan, to be cajoled and entreated and vanquished.