Lucy made an impatient face at her. She threw back the tress of hair. “I hate it,” said she.
Rose began to feel awkward. She noticed Mrs. Ayres's anxious regard of her daughter, and she thought with disgust that Lucy Ayres was not so sweet a girl as she had seemed. However, she felt an odd kind of sympathy and pity for her. Lucy's pretty face and her white wrapper seemed alike awry with nervous suffering, which the other girl dimly understood, although it was the understanding of a normal character with regard to an abnormal one.
Rose resolved to change the subject. “I did enjoy your singing so much this morning,” she said.
“Thank you,” replied Lucy, but a look of alarm instead of pleasure appeared upon her face, which Rose was astonished to see in the mother's likewise.
“I feel so sorry for poor Miss Hart, because I cannot think for a moment that she was guilty of what they accused her of,” said Rose, “that I don't like to say anything about her singing. But I will say this much: I did enjoy yours.”
“Thank you,” said Lucy again. Her look of mortal terror deepened. From being aggressively nervous, she looked on the verge of a collapse.
Mrs. Ayres rose, went to Lucy's closet, and returned with a bottle of wine and a glass. “Here,” she said, as she poured out the red liquor. “You had better drink this, dear. You know Dr. Wallace said you must drink port wine, and you are all tired out with your singing this morning.”
Lucy seized the glass and drank the wine eagerly.
“It must be a nervous strain,” said Rose, “to stand up there, before such a crowded audience as there was this morning, and sing.”
“Yes, it is,” agreed Mrs. Ayres, in a harsh voice, “and especially when anybody isn't used to it. Lucy is not at all strong.”