The woman's throat throbbed. She stopped just where she was and threw out her arms. Then she smiled and then—she sang.
I have heard Guilbert, I have heard Loftus, but neither of them ever made my temples throb, my heart swell, or my breath falter as this woman did. That she chose the saddest of all sad songs—she who a moment before seemed hardly able to contain her laughter—could not quite account for this effect; nor the fact that these flights of tragic melody rose from out a misery which no laughter could cover up. It was genius, great and wonderful genius, misdirected and lost, but still heaven-given and worthy of an artist's recognition. As she sang on I yielded her mine, for my heart swelled almost to bursting, and when she had finished and stood poised, rapt, ecstatic, enthralled with her own melody and beautiful with her own feeling, I found my cheeks wet with tears. I had never wept at anyone's singing before.
"Dance!" came in fresh command from the miserable hag behind me.
I had forgotten Mother Merry.
But the raised face I was contemplating drooped forward at these words, and the arms, which had moved all through the singing, fell inert.
"I have no strength," she wailed. Yet in another instant she was swaying, turning, rising, and falling in mazes of movement so full of grace and charm that I scarcely missed the music which should have accompanied them. It was more than a dance: it was a drama; instinctively I followed her feelings and knew as by a species of revelation what each motion was meant to convey. I watched her as I would some charmed being; for the marks of care had vanished from her features, and the lips, which had been drawn and white, burned redly, and the hair, which had hung in dishevelled locks, now blew out in live curls, athrill with passion and breathing forth rapture and love. Suddenly she paused. Mother Merry had pointed me out with the words:
"The gentleman is looking at you."
Instantly her beauty shrivelled and vanished. Her hands went up to her face; and she crouched like a lost thing against the floor.
"No, no!" she wailed, and would have fled, but Mother Merry forced her back.
"The gentleman wants something. He wants a drop of what you gave the other one that night. You remember, the night the boys slid away and left us to the police."