How was he to let her down from the dizzy height of her illusion without hurting her cruelly or stultifying himself? The voice that had joined in "Maid of Athens" had been so unremarkable, he could not recall anything about it save that, unwillingly, she had sung. She opened the piano. He saw with pitying amusement how her fingers shook upon the ancient rosewood.
"I am a mezzo-soprano," she said. "I'll show you my range first."
And she proceeded to do so, her voice as shaky at the beginning as her hands, but steadying itself on the second note, rising slowly, with a kind of conscious pride, swelling audaciously rich, mounting higher and clearer, leaping at the top notes like some spirit of delight sounding silver trumpets to the sun.
Ethan stood staring when she finished.
"Either something's wrong with my ears, or else you have got a wonderful voice!"
"Oh, cousin Ethan, cousin Ethan!"
She caught his hands, and pressed them in an ecstasy of relief and gladness. He was moved himself when he saw her happy eyes were wet.
"I didn't hear one of those notes last night. What did you do with your voice then?"
"Grandma—she'd put down her foot—soft pedal—she's done that all my life."