‘Might I hope to be of use?’ asked Walpole.
‘Mr. O’Shea wants me to sing something for him,’ said Nina coldly. ‘What is it to be?’ asked she of Gorman. With the readiness of one who could respond to any sudden call upon his tact, Gorman at once took up a piece of music from the mass before him, and said, ‘Here is what I have been searching for.’ It was a little Neapolitan ballad, of no peculiar beauty, but one of those simple melodies in which the rapid transition from deep feeling to a wild, almost reckless, gaiety imparts all the character.
‘Yes, I’ll sing that,’ said Nina; and almost in the same breath the notes came floating through the air, slow and sad at first, as though labouring under some heavy sorrow; the very syllables faltered on her lips like a grief struggling for utterance—when, just as a thrilling cadence died slowly away, she burst forth into the wildest and merriest strain, something so impetuous in gaiety, that the singer seemed to lose all control of expression, and floated away in sound with every caprice of enraptured imagination. When in the very whirlwind of this impetuous gladness, as though a memory of a terrible sorrow had suddenly crossed her, she ceased; then, in tones of actual agony, her voice rose to a cry of such utter misery as despair alone could utter. The sounds died slowly away as though lingeringly. Two bold chords followed, and she was silent.
None spoke in the room. Was this real passion, or was it the mere exhibition of an accomplished artist, who could call up expression at will, as easily as a painter could heighten colour? Kate Kearney evidently believed the former, as her heaving chest and her tremulous lip betrayed, while the cold, simpering smile on Walpole’s face, and the ‘brava, bravissima’ in which he broke the silence, vouched how he had interpreted that show of emotion.
‘If that is singing, I wonder what is crying,’ cried old Kearney, while he wiped his eyes, very angry at his own weakness.’ And now will any one tell me what it was all about?’
‘A young girl, sir,’ replied Gorman, ‘who, by a great effort, has rallied herself to dispel her sorrow and be merry, suddenly remembers that her sweetheart may not love her, and the more she dwells on the thought, the more firmly she believes it. That was the cry, “He never loved me,” that went to all our hearts.’
‘Faith, then, if Nina has to say that,’ said the old man, ‘Heaven help the others.’
‘Indeed, uncle, you are more gallant than all these young gentlemen,’ said Nina, rising and approaching him.
‘Why they are not all at your feet this moment is more than I can tell. They’re always telling me the world is changed, and I begin to see it now.’
‘I suspect, sir, it’s pretty much what it used to be,’ lisped out Walpole. ‘We are only less demonstrative than our fathers.’