Then, from those vermilioned lips there broke out in a low contralto voice the first notes of the song:
"Carissima, the night is fair——"
What a voice! It was not powerful—indeed, it seemed to me as if the singer were using only part of it—but to what purpose! It was sweet as the deepest brown honey, and of a quality that—well! even as the water-finder's rod goes straight home to the hidden spring, so that kind of voice, "finds" the listener's heart—finds tears.
Surprised at myself, I blinked those tears away. I glanced from the black, white and scarlet beauty on the stage to the audience for a moment. All spellbound, all a-gaze.
I saw little Mrs. Price—a row back—slip her hand into that of her gentle giant beside her. I saw Vic's face without a smile, full of brooding tender memories. I saw Elizabeth all tense ... the soldier-boys were serious, intent; the country people behind them looked as full of solemn, poignant enjoyment as if this were not a mere Concert, but a funeral itself.
As for me, I was ashamed of myself. I had to bite my lips and clench my hands as the syrupy Victorian melody was crooned out to the inanely Victorian words:—
"Carissima! Cariss—ima!
The night and I wa-ant oh-oh-oh-only thee!"
Yes; I was having to fight those senseless tears away from my eyes as I listened.
Oh! It wasn't "cricket" for that woman to sing so that she could reduce a healthy matter-of-fact Land-worker to this state of—of mushy sentimentality!
She did more than that. Before the end of the second verse she made me realize something that left me gasping.