“Is the lady ready?” said the pianist, from his dark corner.
“Quite ready,” replied Mariposa, hearing her voice like a tremulous thread of sound in the stillness.
The first bars of the accompaniment sounded thinly. Mariposa stepped forward. She could see in the shadowy emptiness of the auditorium Lepine’s bald head where he sat alone, half-way up the house, and the two pale faces of Shackleton and Mrs. Willers. The Italian conductor had left them and was sitting by himself at one side of the parquet. In the stillness, the notes of the piano were curiously tinkling and feeble.
Mariposa raised her chest with a deep inspiration. A sudden excited expectation seized her at the thought of letting her voice swell out into the hushed void before her. The listening people seemed so small and insignificant in it, they suddenly lost their terror. She began to sing.
It seemed to her that her first notes were hardly audible. They seemed as ineffectual as the piano. Then her confidence grew, and delight with it. She never before had felt as if she had enough room. Her voice rolled itself out like a breaking wave, lapping the walls of the building.
The first verse came to an end. The accompaniment ceased. Lepine moved in his distant seat.
“Continue, Mademoiselle,” he said sharply; “the second verse, if you please. Again, Mr. Martinez.”
Mariposa saw the woman in the box look at the man beside her, raise her eyebrows, and nod.
She began the second verse and sang it through. As its last notes died out there was silence for a moment. In the silence the Italian conductor rose and came forward to where Lepine sat. Mariposa, standing on the stage, saw them conferring for a space. The Italian talked in a low voice, with much gesticulation. Shackleton and Mrs. Willers were motionless and dumb. The woman in the box began to whisper with the man.
“And now the second piece, if Mademoiselle has no objection,” came the voice of the impresario across the parquet. “One can not judge well from one song.”