Montgomery looked vaguely into space; he was obviously not listening, but was trying to follow out some musical scheme that was running in his head. After a long silence he said:
'What I can't make up my mind about is whether I ought to concert that first number or have it sung in unison. Now listen. The scene is the wedding festivities of Prince Florimel, who is about to wed Eva, the daughter of the Duke of Perhapsburg—devilish good name, you know. Well then, the flower-girls come on first, scattering flowers; they proceed two by two and arrange themselves in line on both sides of the stage. They are followed by trumpeters and a herald; then come the ladies-in-waiting, the pages, the courtiers, and the palace servants. Very well; the first four lines, you know—"Hail! hail! the festive day"—that, of course, is sung by the sopranos.'
'You surely don't want to concert that, do you?' interrupted Dick.
'Of course not; you must think me an ignoramus. The first four lines are sung naturally in unison; then there is a repeat, in which the tenors and basses are singing against the women's voices. By that time the stage will be full. Well, then, what I'm thinking of doing, when I get to the second part, you know—"May the stars much pleasure send you, may romance and love attend you," is to repeat "May the stars."'
'Oh, I see what you mean,' said Dick, who began to grow interested. You'll give "May the stars" first to the sopranos, and then repeat with the tenors and basses?'
'That's it. I'll show you,' replied Montgomery, rushing to the piano. 'Here are the sopranos singing in G, "May the stars"; tenors, "May the stars"; tenors and sopranos, "Much pleasure send you"; basses an octave lower, "May the stars—may stars." Now I'm going to join them together—"May the Stars."'
Twisting round rapidly on the piano-stool, Montgomery pushed his glasses high up on his beak-like nose, and demanded an opinion. But before Dick could say a word a kick of the long legs brought the musician again face to the keyboard, and for several minutes he crashed away, occasionally shouting forth an explanatory remark, or muttering an apology when he failed to reach the high soprano notes. The lovesong, however, was too much for him, and, laughing at his own breakdown, he turned from the piano and consented to resume the interrupted conversation. Then the plot and musical setting of Montgomery's new work was discussed. The names of Offenbach and Hervé were mentioned; both were admitted to be geniuses, but the latter, it was declared, would have been the greater had he had the advantage of a musical education. Various anecdotes were related as to how the latter had achieved his first successes, and Montgomery, who questioned the possibility of a man who could not write down the notes being able to compose the whole score of an opera, maintained it was ridiculous to talk of dictating a finale.
Kate often asked herself if she would ever be able to take part in these artistic discussions; she was afraid not. Even when she succeeded in picking up the thread of an idea, it soon got tangled with another, and she began to fear she would never know why Hervé was a better composer than Offenbach, and why a certain quintette was written on classical lines and such-like. She asked Montgomery to explain things to her, but he was more anxious to speak of his own music, and when the names of the ladies of the company were being run over in search of one who could take the part of a page, with a song and twenty lines of dialogue to speak, Dick said:
'Well, perhaps it isn't for me to say it, but I assure you that I don't know a nicer soprano voice than Mrs. Ede's.'
'Ho, ho!' cried Montgomery, twisting his legs over the arm of the chair, 'how is it I never heard of this before? But won't you sing something, Mrs. Ede? If you have any of your songs here I'll try the accompaniment over.'