“So would I,” said Eleanor, but with a different and a more anxious meaning in her tone.
“I wish that man with the violin would start playing again,” said Dolly. “I love to hear him, and it seems to me it’s especially beautiful when the sound comes to you over the water that way.”
“Music always sounds best over the water,” said Eleanor. “He does play well. I’ve been to concerts, and heard famous violin players who didn’t play a bit better—or as well, some of them.”
And just at that moment the music came to them again, wailing, mournful, as if the strings of the violin were sobbing under the touch of the bow, held in the fingers of a real master. The music blended with the night, and the listening girls seemed to lose all desire to talk, so completely did they fall under the spell of the player.
But after a little while a harsh voice on the deck of the yacht interrupted the musician. They could not distinguish the words, but the speaker was evidently annoyed by the music, for it stopped, and then, for a few minutes, there was an argument in which the voices of two men rose shrilly.
“Well, I guess the concert is over,” said Dolly, getting up. “Who wants a drink? I’m thirsty.”
“So am I!” came in chorus from half a dozen of those who were sitting on the sands.
“Serve you right if you all had to go after your own water,” said Dolly. “But I’m feeling nice to-night. I guess it’s the music. Come on, Bessie—feel like taking a little walk with me?”
“I don’t mind,” said Bessie, rising, and stretching her arms luxuriously. “Where are you going?”
“Up the bluff first, to get a pail of water from that spring. After that—well, we’ll see.”