"Please!" she cried, the situation an agony to her. "Not me. My little—"
"Why, Lilly!" said Zoe, regarding her mother with wide, unaffected eyes.
"Sing the scale, dear."
"Do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si-do"—through a crimson flush.
He seemed to lose interest then, turning to Zoe.
"Let me hear you," he said.
"Shall I sing 'Jocelyn' or 'How Like a Bird'?"
"Anything—something simpler."
"Schubert, then, Zoe."
In her straight frock, with its wide patent-leather belt and flat white collar, the cascade of her hair down over it, Zoe held the center of the vast studio, singing straight into her mother's eyes.
It seemed to Lilly, at the sound of that voice, not yet cleared of childish treble, but as ready to rise as a lark, that every ounce of her blood must be gushing against her throat; so, after it was finished, she sat on quite dumbly, staring at the manner in which Trieste remained sitting with his eyes closed.