Mrs. Simonson, good soul, quite swelled with pride in her lodger, and by her behavior created the impression in the minds of people sitting near, that she was the singer's mother.
And Jo—unsentimental Jo—was entirely carried away. With the music, of course, for music was art, and art, only in another branch, was his life and work; and was not Cyn a beautiful work of Nature, the mother of all art?
"He will be a very lucky man who shall call our Cyn his," whispered Clem to Jo, as she came out in answer to an encore.
"What!" ejaculated Jo, so savagely that every one turned to look at him, and Clem opened his eyes wide with surprise. "Bah! Nonsense!"
And some way or other, after this, the music sounded very dismal to Jo, and the close air of the room made his head ache; but he had been working very hard all day, and was tired, so this was quite natural.
Was Clem presuming on his good looks, and thinking of making Cyn his, he wondered? If he was, she certainly would not be fool enough to—Jo stopped here in his meditations, because he would like to have been a little surer that she would not. Very strongly he felt just then that "things of a doubtful nature were sometimes very uncertain!"
It was, of course, no sentiment on his part that caused these emotions. He did not wish Cyn to throw herself away in matrimony, that was all; and so strong were his feelings on this point that he could not banish the idea from his mind all the rest of the evening, and was noticeably thoughtful.
But he was very gay; even unusually, wildly gay on the way home, and kept Mrs. Simonson, whom he escorted, in such a state of laughter that she burst three buttons, and was all "wheezed up" when they reached the hotel.
"Why are you so thoughtful to-night?" Clem asked Nattie, as they walked down their street behind the rest, in the wake of Jo's gayety and Celeste's meaningless giggle. Celeste was clinging to the arm of the unwilling, but helpless Quimby, and chatting of the handsome tenor.
With a slight start, Nattie replied to Clem's question,