"Not as well as your singing, I am sure," answered Helen, in the same tone; "for all the time you were singing he was looking at you from behind those curtains yonder."
"Was he indeed?" said Marion. She looked at the now closed, unresponsive curtains with a quick glance of interest. "What does he look like? I wish I had seen him."
"When you sing again, glance over there and you will certainly be gratified," said Helen. "But here comes Paul at last. He has missed your singing; is not that too bad?"
"I doubt very much if he considers it so," replied Marion. "He has heard me several times and never expressed any particular pleasure, that I remember."
"That is Paul's way," said Helen, eagerly. "It is hard to tell what he feels by what he expresses. He admires your voice very much. I am sure of that."
"What is it you are so sure of, Helen?" asked Rathborne, who had drawn near enough to hear the last words through the crash of the piano.
"That you are very sorry not to have heard Marion's singing," answered Helen, looking up into his face with a smile.
"I should certainly have been very sorry if I had not heard it," he said; "but, as it happens, I had that pleasure. And it was just as I expected," he added, turning to Marion. "You sang as I never heard you sing before. An audience inspires you—an occasion calls forth all your power."
She laughed softly. "Perhaps it was not the audience or the occasion so much as the consciousness of Mr. Singleton's presence, and a desire to evoke some sign of interest from a critic who buries himself in silence behind drawn curtains."
"Well, if so, you evoked it. I congratulate you upon that."