"And to think I never knew!"
He was almost boyishly elated at the implied compliment, and, at the insistence of his audience sang several other operatic selections very creditably. Then he turned in modest explanation to Carter's demand.
"We all sang a little at college, you know, and my mother was an accomplished musician. It is four years since I last sang. You are overkind to me."
"Do you not play as well?" impulsively asked Mrs. Brevoort. He shook his head negatively.
"Only a few accompaniment chords that I smash out indifferently! and I am dubious of my ability to do that after all these years of roping and ditch digging."
Anselm Brevoort, watching him speculatively through a fragrant cloud of cigar smoke, suddenly sprang a bomb. "Have you ever composed, Mr. Douglass, written any songs, for instance? I have heard that you range men have an aptitude in that direction."
Douglass surveyed him levelly for a moment, his face hardening with quick suspicion. "I have done most things foolish, after the manner of my kind, Mr. Brevoort," he said, curtly; "but I hardly think you would find even a passing interest in anything I have accomplished in that direction." Whereupon that astute financier subsided promptly, evincing no further curiosity as to the poetic attainments of this uncomfortably straight-speaking young personage. He was a very shrewd man and had long since learned to respect the moods and idiosyncrasies of others.
But Constance, his wife, detecting the sharp irritation in Douglass's voice, was seized with a malicious desire to know its cause; like her husband she was thinking: "That caught him on the raw, somehow. I wonder why?"
"You should allow your friends to be the judge of that, Mr. Douglass," she said, pleasantly. "I am quite certain myself that we should find much more than a passing interest if we could induce you to favor us. The songs inspired by this environment must naturally be full of color and strength. I should very much enjoy hearing one."
"Upon your heads be it, then!" He seated himself at the piano. "This," he said, turning to Mrs. Brevoort, meaningly, "I call 'The Song of the Wolf.'"