"What is it, Tony?" Jerry asked with a smile.
"Hava you the one grand opera song?" he asked shyly. Jerry was nonplussed. She had not thought of opera for these men. As she turned over her music she asked:
"You like opera, Tony?"
"Vera much, Signora. At home we taka the leetle seester to grand opera even if we have not mucha to eat. We feel that eef the leetle seester hear great music, she be fine lady, not common, not bad—never." His earnest voice broke as he realized that he was being stared at in amazement by the outfit. He mumbled an apology and hurried back to his seat. With a smile at Tony, Jerry placed Tales of Hoffmann on the rack. She sang the Barcarole. As the exquisite, langorous notes floated out over the court the shadows lengthened, the sun dropped behind the mountains. There was no applause when she finished, no one was smoking, the men sat motionless. Where were their thoughts, the girl wondered. With a glance at the crimsoning foot-hills she struck a few chords and sang softly:
"'Day is dying in the west;
Heaven is touching earth with rest;
Wait and worship while the night
Sets her evening lamps alight
Thro' all the sky.'"
With the second verse the men took up the song. To most of them it brought a vivid picture of mother and home and the village church at sunset. They sang until with the last line mountains and foot-hills took up the words and sent them pealing into space.
That closed the musicale. One by one the men came forward and thanked Jerry as she stood between Courtlandt and Benson. As the last one left the court Tommy turned to the girl.
"I'll say that was a wonderful thing to do, Mrs. Steve." With a quick change of tone he spoke to Courtlandt. "Marks and Schoeffleur weren't here; did you miss them?"
"Would you expect them to be here?"
"I should have expected it until to-day. Ever since Marks blew in here from nowhere two months ago I've been wondering where the dickens I'd seen him. When that airplane passed over to-day memory flipped into place the missing piece of the puzzle. He was a mechanician at the hangar where I tried to develop wings in 1917."