"SERVISS LISTENED WITH GROWING AMAZEMENT"[ToList]
When the final stormy note was still, Viola remained on her stool, as though waiting for her critic to applaud.
Serviss broke the silence by exclaiming: "See here, you people are making game of me. You are both professionals in disguise. Come now, 'fess up," he challenged Clarke. "You are Señor Del Corte, barytone of the Salt-Air Opera Company; and you, Miss Lambert, belong to the Arion Ladies' Orchestra. I have found you both out!"
The girl smiled with pleasure, but Clarke remained so unassailably serious that Serviss was moved to further deeps of audacity. "Don't tell me you are a comedian, also! You certainly have me guessing. Who are you, really?"
Clarke answered, resentfully: "I am the pastor of the Presbyterian church in this village, as Miss Lambert has told you, and she is my organist."
Again that thump three times repeated sounded upon the door. Serviss, baffled and silenced by Clarke's impenetrable gravity, and by something inexplicably submissive, yet watchful, in the face of the girl, felt himself confronted by an intangible, sinister, and inescapable influence. The young clergyman seemed to darken and oppress both women. It was as if they were all leagued in a conspiracy to deceive and cajole. This bewilderment lasted but a moment, and he rose from his chair with a spring. "Well, now, play something else—give us a bit of rag-time; that last piece has left us all a little dashed—try a cake-walk."
Clarke interposed. "Miss Lambert does not play those trashy melodies. I consider them essentially irreligious."
Serviss resented the preacher's tone, but quickly answered: "They're not exactly reverent, I'll admit; but without them American music would be but a poor reflection of the German."
As if to save his reputation the preacher sang "The Palms," and sang it magnificently; and the girl accompanied him with such accuracy and good judgment that Serviss was able to infer long hours of practice, and this did not please him.