“All right. Doesn’t it disturb you?” came the man’s voice from the moonlight below.
“Not a bit. I like it. I’m waiting for the voice. ‘O Richard, O mon roi!’—”
But the music had stopped.
“There!” cried Mrs. Tuke. “You’ve frightened him off! And we’re dying to be serenaded, aren’t we, nurse?” She turned to Alvina. “Do give me my fur, will you? Thanks so much. Won’t you open the other window and look out there—?”
Alvina went to the second window. She stood looking out.
“Do play again!” Mrs. Tuke called into the night. “Do sing something.” And with her white arm she reached for a glory rose that hung in the moonlight from the wall, and with a flash of her white arm she flung it toward the garden wall—ineffectually, of course.
“Won’t you play again?” she called into the night, to the unseen. “Tommy, go indoors, the bird won’t sing when you’re about.”
“It’s an Italian by the sound of him. Nothing I hate more than emotional Italian music. Perfectly nauseating.”
“Never mind, dear. I know it sounds as if all their insides were coming out of their mouth. But we want to be serenaded, don’t we, nurse?—”
Alvina stood at her window, but did not answer.