Placing one glistening hand intelligently against the singer’s ribs, Mr. Curry asked her to sigh for him. “Say: ‘Ooooooo.’” He waited breathlessly. “No—you let ’em fall! It’s just what I was afraid of!” He studied her a moment, very earnestly. Then his face lighted. “Try ‘Ahhhhh.’” And at last the effort succeeded. “You’ve got it!” he cried exultantly. “Didn’t I tell you they’d stay up if you went at ’em right? Now the same thing on your ‘ti-roo.’ Wait a minute and I’ll give you the key.”
The impresario, keeping one hand firmly on Miss Valentine’s ribs, reached far out to the piano with the other. “That’s it!” The next chord was triumphant, and the next chord after that was more triumphant still. His songbird was coming back into her own again.
“Feel as though you’re leaning on your face!” he cried. “Don’t be afraid of your face—it won’t fall out!”
Then he made her send air through her nose with her mouth open—which made her look a little ludicrous, but then, was there ever a genuine singer who cared how she looked when she sang? And he made her sing “La-la-la-la-la,” over and over again, and told her she ought to feel her tongue wag up from the bottom of her throat, and talked a great deal about a mysterious region in back of her teeth, and put her through the ordeal of the “silent attack.” And then—oh, well, there was nothing much left to do but sit back and enjoy the fruits of tireless patience. But they plunged into arpeggios, for good measure, and the impresario kept nodding, pleased and more pleased—though he had an eagle eye on her all the time, too.
She was really singing now—had got all untied—the tin whistle was cast out. After a little supplementary staccato work he turned to her with mild, appealing eyes, which glistened very suspiciously.
III
“This may be the last chance we’ll have together like this,” he said softly, “before the offer comes. While you’re still one of my songbirds, let me hear you sing some of the old pieces, like Annie Laurie and the Last Rose of Summer. I’ll play along and just dream.”
“Yes,” she replied warmly. “You’re an angel! I’ll sing anything you like.”
And so she sang him the old songs down in the stuffy little cabin; and his eyes kept right on glistening, though he smiled up at her from time to time quite happily. Yes, she sang as no one, surely, had ever heard her sing before. The impresario had tuned her up for big money; but now she was singing just for him.
When he had finished, stealthy forms might have been detected moving away from the passage outside—not only songbirds, but seamen too, the mate and the ship’s cook and the cabin boy; while up on deck Captain Bearman, who had been secretly listening himself at one of the ventilators, was roaring and cursing because his ship was lying all unmanned, at the mercy of the elements.