"Walt Whitman," he told her. "They're all out of a poem called Sea-Drift."
She went on reading, now audibly, now with a mere silent movement of the lips, half puzzled, half entranced, and catching—despite her protest that she could not read the music,—some intimations of its intense strange beauty.
"' …do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers?… Loud I call to you, my love … Surely you must know who is here … O rising stars! Perhaps the one I want so much will rise … with some of you … O trembling throat! Sound clearer through the atmosphere …'"
With a shake of the head, like one trying to stop the weaving of a spell, she turned the pages back to the beginning.
"This means Novelli," she said. "I'll get him. I'll get him this morning.
He's the best accompanist in Chicago. We'll go to work on them and when
we've got them presentable, I'll let you know and sing them to you.
Where do you live?"
He got up for a paper and pencil and wrote out an address and a telephone number. She was still staring at that first page of the score when he brought it back to her.
"I've never heard any of those songs myself," he told her.
At that she looked around at him, looked steadily into his face for a moment and then her eyes filled with tears. She reached out both hands and took him by the shoulders. "Well, you're going to hear them this time, my dear," she said. As she moved away, she added in a more matter-of-fact tone, "Just as soon as we can work them up, in a few days perhaps. I'll let you know."