“Oh,” groaned Barron, “he ought not to be stirred up; come and see him, then, but don’t stay over a minute.”
The girl came, breathless, shy a bit, but blissful.
“To-morrow morning, then, you’ll sing for him,” said Barron three minutes later. “And now go away, my dear, for he mustn’t get tired.”
In the Barron drawing-room, while McIvor’s secretary played an accompaniment, the girl stood next morning and sang.
McIvor lay outside among his pillows and stared at the tossing pink veil clothing the broken lattice. The girl sang as confidently as any bird in a tree, taking the difficult changes and the trying high notes without any effort. Her voice was astonishing in its power. McIvor looked at her as she came smiling through the door.
“You’d do for a church organ,” he said. “Where does all that noise come from, you wisp of a child? Turn sideways.” She whirled, laughing. “I see. You fooled me. You’ve got the deep chest of a prima donna. Healthy, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “As strong as my brother. Never ill since measles. I can run up-hill and not get winded.”
“You’re fit,” said McIvor. The girl looked at him, waited.
In a moment: “You’d be awfully good—if you’d tell me about my voice,” she brought out, and flushed. The surface hardness which she had forced on herself did not go deep yet. Quickly she went on, and her young face grew oddly keen. “You see—Mr. McIvor—I’ve got to make money. And I’ve been told—my voice was—good for it. Not a little money—lots! I hate—getting along—being hard up. If you’d say—that I’ve got a real voice——”
McIvor drew his brows together. “Make money! And you seventeen!” he said as if to himself, but his eyes were stern. “Miss Mannering, you are going the wrong way to be an artist. Art is an exacting mistress. The price she asks for success is one’s heart. If ye cannot give that, if ye cannot love music for music’s sake”—McIvor dropped into Scotchness at odd times; it was a sign of strong feeling—“ye’ll not be great. Ye certainly hae a fine organ for singin’; it’s a grand machine God has gi’en ye. But I know now what’s troublin’ me about your voice—the soul’s not there. An’ gi’en ye persist in wantin’ money first, the soul will not find its way in. Ye’ll be no true singer. It’s mechanical, that lovely big voice of ye, and it’ll move no man. What the true singer wants is to stir the hearts of people and send them awa’ to help the world, because his music has helped them. Would na’ ye like to do that?”