Elsa had so far forgotten her self-consciousness that she sang her quotation in a sweet, clear treble which made Gerald turn around and stare at her in surprise.
“Why, I didn’t know you could sing.”
“I can’t—much, only for Papa, sometimes. He’s a fine singer. He belongs to the Oratorio Society. He’s one of its best tenors, takes solos, you know. I’m very proud of Papa’s voice. His being poor doesn’t keep him out of that Society.”
“Then he ought to get yours cultivated. You might make money that way.”
“Maybe, but money isn’t much. Anyway, he hasn’t the money to pay for lessons.”
“Look here. You’re so smart with those detestable monks, suppose you go on training ’em and exhibit when you get back to town? I’d let you have ’em on trust till you could pay for them. What do you say?”
Was this the poor, timid Elsa who now faced him with flashing eyes? Had this down-trodden “worm” actually “turned”?
“Say? What do I say? That you’re the horridest boy in this whole world and I’ve a mind to fling your old monkeys straight at you! I—I—” then she sobbed, fatigue overcoming her and her wrath dying as swiftly as it had arisen. “I—I see a house over there. We better go to it and ask.”
She was trembling now and her lame foot dragged painfully. She had made no complaint of the long distance and the troublesome little animals she sometimes led and sometimes carried, though Gerald had grumbled incessantly.
Now all the best of his nature came to the front, and he had never felt more bitterly ashamed of himself than when he realized that his thoughtless proposition had been an insult to the afflicted, shrinking girl. Warmed by the love and appreciation of her Water Lily friends she “had come out of her shell” of reserve and been most happy. Now this boy had forced her back again; to remembering that after all she was but a very poor girl, deformed, despised, and considered simply fit to make a mountebank of herself, going about the city streets with apes! Oh! it was very dimly that Elsa could see the outlines of a whitewashed cabin in the fields, because of the tears which filled her eyes.