“One of the lines came into my mind just now when I looked at that picture. 'She drew an angel down.'”
“And it was very apt. She would draw an angel down.”
“Yes; but the poet has another line before that one—it refers to a singer—'He raised a mortal to the skies.' That was the line which came to my mind when I heard you sing. You raise mortals to the skies. Your power is equal to that of St. Cecilia.”
“Nay, nay; that is what you have done. I have been uplifted to the highest heaven by you. When you are near me I cannot see anything of the world. Why have we not met more frequently? Ah, I forget—I am always forgetting that the months you spoke of have not yet run out. But I am not impatient, knowing that the prize will come to me in good time. I have been away at the Bath and Salisbury and Bristol and I know not where, singing, singing, singing, and now I go to Paris and Lyon for a few months, but you may be certain that I shall return to England—then the separating months shall have passed and you will welcome me—is not that so?”
“I think I can promise you—every day seems to make it more certain that I shall welcome you.”
“My angel—my dream!——”
He said the words—both long-drawn monosyllables in French—in a whisper that gave them the full force of passionate expression. He had need to whisper, for several people were in the room, and Mr. Boswell was among the number, and everyone knew that Mr. Boswell, as a gossip-monger, had no equal in town. He was always pimping and prying—nosing out germs of scandal—ever ready to make mischief by telling people all the nasty things other people had said of them. Mr. Boswell had his eye on them—and his ear. In addition, Mrs. Thrale, who had arrived late, had no idea of allowing the handsome Roman singer to waste himself with a nonentity like Miss Burney, and she was now perilously close to him whom she came to rescue.
But the whisper and the expression imparted to it were enough for Fanny Burney. He might have talked for hours in his impassioned way without achieving the effect of his whispered exclamations.
Then Mrs. Thrale hastened up to his side full of her resolution to rescue him from the conversation with the insignificant person whom his good nature suffered to engage his attention.
“Why, what is this?” cried the little lady who regarded herself with complacency as the soul of tact. “Have you explained to Signor Rauzzini that you are the unmusical member of the family, Miss Burney?”