The fourth or fifth day this restraint began to wear off. She received letters from Paris, her manner altered visibly, and her spirits seemed changed. She ventured to meet the dark eyes of our hero, and one evening he induced her to seat herself at the harp, and favour him with an Italian cansonetta.
Though her voice trembled a little at the commencement, it gradually gained power and depth, and its rich, full tones thrilled through the hearer’s heart. When concluded, Lieutenant Thornton sat actually enthralled, so powerfully had the tones of her voice awakened some dream of the past.
“Ah!” exclaimed Julia Plessis, “I told you, monsieur, how it would be; adieu to my performance. But I can bear it, for in truth, Marie, you have a marvellous flexibility, and a wonderful modulation of tone.”
“You so completely fascinated me, mademoiselle,” said Lieutenant Thornton, “that I was unable at once to express my delight and thank you; if there is any one accomplishment above all others that a female can possess to perfection, I love that of singing. It has always had a strange charm over me. I do think that even in the fiercest strife it would disarm me.”
“Well, that is strange,” said Madame Plessis, looking up from a piece of fancy work she was amusing herself with. “I knew a lady that became so powerfully affected by music when well and skilfully played, and the human voice added, that she invariably fainted.”
“Then I should think, mamma,” said Julia, laughing, “that she carefully shunned such sirens as Mademoiselle de Tourville.”
“No, indeed,” returned the mother, “music had such a fascination, that she eagerly sought the society of those who excelled in that accomplishment.”
“Which proved,” said our hero, with a smile, “that the pleasure exceeded the pain.”
Monsieur Plessis, as he sat with his new friend late that evening enjoying a glass of his favourite Burgundy, said—
“Do you know that that affair of the brigands is rather a strange one.”