So Joy sang Madame Butterfly . . . with a pulse beating in her voice that made the great one turn on the last note and kiss her exultantly.
“When I have a new sensation with that song, I am won!” she cried. “And you gave it—why, you little girl—with years before your maiden voice grows into your woman’s voice—you had not only the longing of Butterfly but the longing of all! Do you see what I mean? It is so that the American shop girl could hear you sing it in Italian and weep!”
She became quiet, judicial. “Pa Graham is right. The greatest of teachers are not always right—when the pupil has beauty which dazzles and deafens the beholder—but Pa is right with you. You have everything, everything and to spare, in equipment. Now it is the question of the years of preparation. Many young girls start out as you, with high hopes and encouragement. Many do not finish—of their own fault and choosing. Are you of a steadfast mind?”
“I will let nothing come in my way,” said Joy breathlessly, “not even love——”
“That is the thing that may end all. . . . And perhaps you may be glad that all is over, if you love greatly.” She looked down at the gorgeous rings on her fingers, and there was a little silence before she continued. “But most loves are not the great loves of which we sing and act; they are not the blazing altar-fires of which we dream; love comes down to a hearth-fire, after marriage. And we who sing are not content with hearth-fires. Remember that always, little one; we who sing are not content with hearth-fires.”
The maid came into the far end of the room, spraying the air with water from an atomizer. “My substitute for Adelina’s wood-fires,” the wren said with a smile. “Steam dries you up in your throat—oh, it is terrible! Bring the tea, will you, Aimée?” A pause, while she played rippling cadenzas and frowned at the keys. Joy longed to ask her to sing, but would not, when suddenly without apparent preparation or setting, her voice floated out in a great, full note that swelled to the power of the room until the very windows sang, and then quivered itself into silence. Under the little white hands the keys wove a melody above which the voice rang out, first dazzling with its fireworks, then charming with its beauty. Joy, listening, thought it the most perfect voice in the world, as it came close to being. It ended on a long high note as small and clear as a thread of silver, that hung in the air and charmed the echoes.
“It is an old Italian air,” she said, before Joy could speak. “I have not sung it for a long time; no one sings it any more; the new music is all different.”
“Thank you,” said Joy, reverently; “the memory of that will always spur me on. And thank you for not singing before I did!”
Her laugh, as lovely a thing as one of her runs, rippled out, and she turned to the wagon Aimée was wheeling into the room. “And now for tea. Here is a splendid illustration of the hardships of the singer. We must forswear life’s sweet things for the voice and the figure. Often I think, when shall I taste that French pastry my friends always de-vour?” She rolled her eyes, almost upsetting the teacup she was passing Joy. “But no, I do not even know what it would seem like.”
Tea with lemon and without sugar; buttered toast; flat little sponge cakes that tasted like sawdust.