After the march Mildred went over to the piano and asked Castellani to sing.
He smiled assent, and played the brief symphony to a ballad of Heine’s, set by Jensen. The exquisite tenor voice, the perfect taste of the singer, held his audience spellbound. They listened in silence, and entreated him to sing again, and then again, till he had sung four of these jewel-like ballads, and they felt that it was impertinence to ask for more.
Mildred had stolen round to her own sheltered corner, half hidden by a group of tall palms. She sat with her hands clasped in her lap, her head bent. She could not see the singer. She only heard the low pathetic voice, slightly veiled. It touched her like no other voice that she had ever heard since, in her girlhood, she burst into a passion of sobs at first hearing Sims Reeves, when that divine voice touched some hyper-sensitive chord in her own organisation and moved her almost to hysteria. And now, in this voice of the man who of all other men she instinctively disliked, the same tones touched the same chord, and loosened the floodgates of her tears. She sat with streaming eyes, grateful for the sheltering foliage which screened her from observation.
She dried her eyes and recovered herself with difficulty when the singer rose from the piano and Mrs. Hillersdon began to take leave. Mr. Rollinson button-holed Castellani on the instant.
“You sing as if you had just come from the seraphic choir,” he said. “You must sing for us on the seventh.”
“Who are ‘us’?” asked Castellani.
“Our concert in aid of the fund for putting a Burne-Jones window over the altar.”
“A concert in Enderby village? Is it to be given at the lock-up or in the pound?”
“It is to be given in this room. Mrs. Greswold has been good enough to allow us the use of her drawing-room and her piano. Miss Ransome promises to preside at the buffet for tea and coffee.”
“It will be glorious fun,” exclaimed Pamela; “I shall feel like a barmaid. I have always envied barmaids.”