She turned to me, proudly smiling, with a questioning “Well”.

Mr. Masters, his head drooped, heaved a sigh.

I could not be untruthful. I had been too deeply moved.

“Your voice is very fine,” I said in the flattest of voices and looked at her beseechingly.

She met my eyes steadily and her smile died away.

“Only a voice,” she said.

“Miss Harris,” I cried imploringly. “You are young, you have beauty—” She cut short my bromides with an angry exclamation.

“And no more temperament than a tomato can,” Mr. Masters finished for me.

He ran his fingers over the keyboard in a glittering flow of notes.

“You’re a liar,” she cried, turning furiously on him.