She picked up between her fingers a strand of the green fern, and looked at its delicate tracery as it lay on the palm of her hand.
“I sang one day after a missionary sermon in the Presbyterian Church.” She interrupted herself with a short laugh. “But I guess you’re not thinking of writing my biography, are you?”
And it was Dan’s voice that urged her. “Say, do go on. I was there that day with my father, and you sang simply out of sight.”
“Yes,” she accepted, “out of sight of Blairtown and everybody I ever knew. I went away the next day.” She lifted her glass of champagne to her lips. “Here’s one thing I oughtn’t to do,” she said, “but I’m going to just the same. I’m going to do everything I want this evening. Remember, I let you drink six glasses of chocolate soda once.” She drained her glass and her friends drank with her. “I like this soup awfully. What is it?”—just touching it with her spoon.
“Why,” Ruggles hastened to tell her, “it ain’t a party soup, it’s Scotch broth. But somehow it sounded good on the bill of fare. I fixed the rest of the dinner up for you and Dan, but I let myself go on the soup, it’s my favorite.”
She did not eat it, however, although she said it was splendid and that she was crazy about it.
“Did you come East then?” Dan returned to what she had been saying.
“Yes, that week; went to Paris and all over the place.”
She instantly fell into a sort of melancholy. It was easy to be seen that she did not want to talk about her past and yet that it fascinated her.
“Just think of it!” he exclaimed. “I never heard a word about you until I heard you sing the other night.”