But her want was a vain one. The man smiled quizzically at Nora, who acknowledged the salutation by a curtsy which would have frightened away the banshees of her childhood. Nora hated scenes, and Courtlandt had the advantage of her in his knowledge of this. Celeste remained at the piano, but Nora turned as if to move away.
“No, no!” cried the padre, his palms extended in protest. “If you stop the music I shall leave instantly.”
“But we are all through, Padre,” replied Nora, pinching Celeste’s arm, which action the latter readily understood as a command to leave the piano.
Celeste, however, had a perverse streak in her to-day. Instead of rising as Nora expected she would, she wheeled on the stool and began Morning Mood from Peer Gynt, because the padre preferred Grieg or Beethoven to Chopin. Nora frowned at the pretty head below her. She stooped.
“I sha’n’t forgive you for this trick,” she whispered.
Celeste shrugged, and her fingers did not falter. So Nora moved away this time in earnest.
“No, you must sing. That is what I came up for,” insisted the padre. If there was any malice in the churchman, it was of a negative quality. But it was in his Latin blood that drama should appeal to him strongly, and here was an unusual phase in The Great Play. He had urged Courtlandt, much against the latter’s will this day, to come up with him, simply that he might set a little scene such as this promised to be and study it from the vantage of the prompter. He knew that the principal theme of all great books, of all great dramas, was antagonism, antagonism between man and woman, though by a thousand other names has it been called. He had often said, in a spirit of raillery, that this antagonism was principally due to the fact that Eve had been constructed (and very well) out of a rib from Adam. Naturally she resented this, that she had not been fashioned independently, and would hold it against man until the true secret of the parable was made clear to her.
“Sing that, Padre?” said Nora. “Why, there are no words to it that I know.”
“Words? Peste! Who cares for words no one really ever understands? It is the voice, my child. Go on, or I shall make you do some frightful penance.”
Nora saw that further opposition would be useless. After all, it would be better to sing. She would not be compelled to look at this man she so despised. For a moment her tones were not quite clear; but Celeste increased the volume of sound warningly, and as this required more force on Nora’s part, the little cross-current was passed without mishap. It was mere pastime for her to follow these wonderful melodies. She had no words to recall so that her voice was free to do with as she elected. There were bars absolutely impossible to follow, note for note, but she got around this difficulty by taking the key and holding it strongly and evenly. In ordinary times Nora never refused to sing for her guests, if she happened to be in voice. There was none of that conceited arrogance behind which most of the vocal celebrities hide themselves. At the beginning she had intended to sing badly; but as the music proceeded, she sang as she had not sung in weeks. To fill this man’s soul with a hunger for the sound of her voice, to pour into his heart a fresh knowledge of what he had lost forever and forever!