“How so?”
“To sing for me, my voice is scared to death.”
“It doesn’t sound that way, but I know what you mean.”
“’Pon honor!—the crudity of it! and then to be asked to sing after you.”
“Never mind that, think of the music, and forget yourself.”
“What! forget the music and think of myself!” He had hardly uttered the thought upside down before it seemed to suggest something to him. He said nothing, however, for a moment, and then seemed to brace up, and began talking about other things, until Mrs. Cultus approached.
Adele knew, or rather thought she knew, that if her mother pressed him too hard in his present mood she might receive a refusal in return, a polite apology for not singing. Much to her surprise, Paul consented with considerable cordiality, saying he would do his best gladly; but there was a twinkle in his eye which he could not disguise as he said it. Adele wondered what the twinkle meant. Mamma felt sure he would do “stunts.”
What had influenced Paul so suddenly? The twisted words giving a new association of ideas had suggested yet another motive for singing. “Forget the music, and think of you, Adele.” He had thought of a songlet which did just that sort of thing—he would try it.
Why had Adele failed to appreciate the twinkle? Simply because she did not then know him well enough to recognize one of the strongest elements in his character, namely, a certain sure reserve power which men of his type are apt to possess, and manifest in positions of this sort with marked individuality in form of expression. Paul was just such a man.
With him it had been Adele’s first song, the florid aria to show off her voice, which had made the passing impression, not the second; in fact, the train of thought first excited had continued on through Adele’s second song, blinding him to a certain extent,—so that although he did hear the beautiful finale when her voice passed from hearing, he was preoccupied; he heard it only as another instance of her highly cultivated technique, nothing more. Its real spiritual significance had been lost upon him because his mind was preoccupied in another direction. Having ears he had not heard, yet being what he was, he had; consequently his impressions of her performance were complicated. He had appreciated her cultivated voice as fully, probably, as any in the room, but also remembered how at the hospital some time before she had sung much less ambitious music which excited even greater sympathy, bringing tears rather than applause. He did not wish Adele to lose her charm in that respect, and now, in his present frame of mind, feared lest she might do so. In fact, being somewhat askew in his own mind, yet rather sensitive about her, he jumped to the conclusion that she might give up the old simplicity of real power in order to electrify society by flights of vocalization. Thus the spirituality of a sincere, practical man did not differ fundamentally from that of another with greater æsthetic and artistic development, but the manifestation of it took an entirely different form.