"Now, now, Miss Crane, you know you are hiding your light under a bushel," cried Mrs. Darrow with horribly artificial mirth. "What's more, I expect you sing them delightfully. Come now, confess."
Miriam seated there at the piano might in truth have been carved out of marble, so cold and so perfectly calm was she.
"I am sorry to disappoint you, but I don't sing any songs of that kind at all."
"Oh, but really!" Mrs. Darrow was smoothing out the folio of music; "you can't say that, in the face of this. Surely this must be yours—'It's a Funny Little Way I've Got!' M. Crane, Frivolity Music Hall!" She handed the sheet over to Miriam.
Barton bit his lip, and began to see at last what she was after. Mrs. Darrow proceeded.
"Really, Miss Crane, I don't think I deserved to be so deceived at your hands. You might at least have told me that you were a singer at that class of—entertainment."
There was a dead silence. Barton looked daggers, and was in truth somewhat fearful that more of Miriam's past life than he liked was on the verge of discovery. Major Dundas raised his eyebrows, and Gerald, to conceal his surprise, hastily turned away. With a faint smile Miriam took the music, and looked coldly at Mrs. Darrow.
"I never sang a song in public in my life," she said, "and most certainly I have nothing to do with the Frivolity Music Hall."
"But the name is yours, and, I think, the handwriting too. How do you explain that?"
"The handwriting, as you say, is mine. But the name is not. If you must know, the song belonged to my brother, Michael Crane. He was very fond of the Frivolity Music Hall. He heard the song there, and bought it to sing himself. He was quite absurd in his liking for that class of thing, and really sang songs of the kind remarkably well—so much so that I often used to say he would end by becoming a music-hall singer. I happened to write his name upon this song, and I added 'The Frivolity Music Hall' simply by way of a joke. I little thought when I did so that it would be the means of placing me in my present position. I can only say that it is one I don't appreciate in the least."