She told him. And then he took his flute.
“You don't mind if I play it, do you?” he said.
So he played the tune. It was so simple. And he seemed to catch the lilt and the timbre of her voice.
“Come and sing it while I play—” he said.
“I can't sing,” she said, shaking her head rather bitterly.
“But let us try,” said he, disappointed.
“I know I can't,” she said. But she rose.
He remained sitting at the little table, the book propped up under the reading lamp. She stood at a little distance, unhappy.
“I've always been like that,” she said. “I could never sing music, unless I had a thing drilled into me, and then it wasn't singing any more.”
But Aaron wasn't heeding. His flute was at his mouth, he was watching her. He sounded the note, but she did not begin. She was twisting her handkerchief. So he played the melody alone. At the end of the verse, he looked up at her again, and a half mocking smile played in his eyes. Again he sounded the note, a challenge. And this time, as at his bidding, she began to sing. The flute instantly swung with a lovely soft firmness into the song, and she wavered only for a minute or two. Then her soul and her voice got free, and she sang—she sang as she wanted to sing, as she had always wanted to sing, without that awful scotch, that impediment inside her own soul, which prevented her.