“With just suspicion?”
“No; with unmerited pity.” And he began to open the piano.
“What! do you accompany yourself?”
“Yes, after a fashion; by that means I don't get run over.”
Then this accomplished person fixed his eyes on Fanny Dover, and sung her an Italian love song in the artificial passionate style of that nation; and the English girl received it pointblank with complacent composure. But Zoe started and thrilled at the first note, and crept up to the piano as if drawn by an irresistible cord. She gazed on the singer with amazement and admiration. His voice was a low tenor, round, and sweet as honey. It was a real voice, a musical instrument.
“More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.”
And the Klosking had cured him of the fatal whine which stains the amateur, male or female, and had taught him climax, so that he articulated and sung with perfect purity, and rang out his final notes instead of slurring them. In short, in plain passages he was a reflection, on a small scale, of that great singer. He knew this himself, and had kept clear of song: it was so full of reminiscence and stings. But now jealousy drove him to it.
It was Vizard's rule to leave the room whenever Zoe or Fanny opened the piano. So in the evening that instrument of torture was always mute.
But hearing a male voice, the squire, who doted on good music, as he abhorred bad, strolled in upon the chance; and he stared at the singer.
When the song ended, there was a little clamor of ladies' voices calling him to account for concealing his talent from them.