“Pray, Judy, make no more jokes,” she said, drawing the deformed girl down to a seat beside her. “My lips are really fatigued with smiling. Let us be sensible. Perhaps Mr. Valentine will sing to us. Will you?” and with a pretty, beseeching gesture she turned to the young man.
He bowed gravely and went to the piano. “It is the only time that I can endure him,” mused Vivienne, “when that flood of heartfelt and touching melody comes from his frivolous lips. How can he sing so divinely—he, a trifler, an idler?”
Valentine, with eyes fixed on her, was singing “Eulalie.” His sweet, strong, and powerful tenor voice filled the room. Some penetrating quality in it touched the girl strangely, and tears came to her eyes as she listened.
“Star of the summer eve,
Sink, sink to rest!
Sink ere the silver light
Fades from the west;
But nevermore will I
Watch keep for thee,
With her I loved so well,