“Why, yes, didn’t you know I could sing?”
“Do you mean to say you were singing all those two or three hours?”
“Not all the time, but at intervals. I sang so loud sometimes that I thought I should wake you.”
“Then,” I exclaimed with feeling, “it was you that I heard. You know my ears are never fully asleep. Margaret, it was your voice that I have been falling in love with.”
At this Margaret laughed heartily, as she answered:
“You have been a good while finding it out. I knew it all the time. That’s what I sang for, and I had my pay as I went on, for every time I began, whether soft or loud, I could see your face light up with the light of your soul, and then I knew my voice was finding its way to some corner of your brain.”
“How stupid of me,” I said, “not to wake up the very first time I heard you; but I thought it was Mona. Oh, how it did thrill me! And to think I am to hear it again when I am really awake. Come, why do we waste all this time in talking when I have that great happiness still unfulfilled? May I not hear you sing now?”
“Oh, you might be disappointed, after all. My idea is that you enjoyed my singing because all your critical faculties were dulled in sleep, and you heard only through your heart, as it were. Don’t you think it would be better to live awhile on the pleasant memory you have brought back with you?”
“Not at all. I can retain the memory, and have the present happiness besides.”
“But you said you never expected to hear such music in your waking hours.”