“My dear man,” she said richly, “your tea must be stone cold! Let me give you a fresh cup, and you must try this cake, really, for I made it myself, to see whether I’d forgotten how—I don’t have time any more for such luxuries as ‘baking.’”
“Time,” murmured the Captain with a sleepy nod. “Time—and eternity....”
“Oh, now,” his sister countered, “you can’t eliminate my ‘responsibilities’ just by talking like a Buddhist!”
“Of course,” he admitted, “one may call things by whatever names one chooses—h’m? You choose to call them responsibilities.”
“You’ve always laughed at my apartments, Chris: but I can’t see that they’re any more uncertain than ships!” And there, in truth, she really had him.
III
It was all very delightful. And before long the illustrious coloratura was prevailed upon to sing a few songs, though she said the usual things about being in wretched voice, without expecting that they should be taken too seriously.
The impresario excitedly seated himself at the piano and spread out some music and they conferred in earnest whispers. He sat looking up at her with such a look of loving and hopeful anticipation as must move any one not utterly barricaded against sentiment. It was really beautiful to see them together. He was so manifestly proud of the songbird he had rescued from the Galesburg choir, while she showed such touching confidence in him—even if, when the strain was all over and bouquets of praise poured in, she would forget to give the zealous maestro any particular credit.
The singer drew in deeply, lowered her head a little, focused the whole force of her being into the momentous first tone, and sang. It was an aria from that sublime and noble work, Linda di Chamounix, in which, of course, the heroine goes mad in the second act or so, for no entirely apparent reason, and lets her hair down her back, and sings cascades in competition with a long-suffering flute. The “business end” of Miss Valentine’s voice was the vital stretch between B and E; it was these impressive top notes that made her, in reality, a coloratura to be reckoned with—that kept the harassed impresario also in a state of perpetual alarm.