Dennis glanced over the music, and she began to play a loud, difficult piece.
He turned to Miss Ludolph, and said: "I fear you have given me the wrong music. Miss Brown is playing something not written here."
They exchanged significant glances, and Miss Winthrop said, "Play the right music, Miss Brown."
She struck into the music that Dennis held, but played it so out of time that no one could sing it. Dennis laid down his sheets on the piano and said quietly, though with flushed face: "I did not mean to be obtrusive. You all seemed greatly disappointed at Mr. Archer's absence and the results, and I thought that in view of the emergency it would not be presumption to offer my services. But it seems that I am mistaken."
"No, it is not presumption," said Miss Winthrop. "It was true kindness and courtesy, which has been ill requited. But you see, to be frank, Mr. Fleet, we all fear that you do not realize what you are undertaking."
"Must I of necessity be an ignoramus because, as Miss Brown says, I sweep a store?"
"Let me play the accompaniment," said Christine, with the decided manner that few resisted, and she went correctly through the difficult and brilliant passage. Dennis followed his part with both eye and ear, and then said, "Perhaps I had better sing my part alone first, and then you can correct any mistakes."
There was a flutter of expectation, a wink from Mr. Mellen, and an audible titter from Miss Brown.
"Certainly" said Miss Ludolph, who thought to herself, "If he will make a fool of himself, he may"; and she played the brief prelude.
Then prompt at the proper moment, true to time and note, Dennis's rich, powerful tenor voice startled and then entranced them all. He sung the entire passage through with only such mistakes as resulted from his nervousness and embarrassment.