“I love the rôle of Marguerite,” she began innocently.
He paused to chuckle. “Bravo! There never was a really normal soprano who did not aspire to Marguerite for her début. It is as much a soprano symptom, as it is a tenor symptom to yearn to do sacred arias on Easter Sunday and a basso to growl to be heard at open air music festivals. The only rhythmic thing about contraltos is their delight in having cigars named after them.” He looked up to see if she was laughing at his nonsense.
“But why?” she demanded seriously.
“Well, why are brides fond of trying scalloped potatoes in new silver pudding dishes? Why do young widows join bridge clubs or why does a boy cherish his first teeth to trade in at school for king-chestnuts?” He picked out a flippant little chord as punctuation.
“You must not call me too stupid,” Thurley said unexpectedly, leaning her arms on the piano, “but my original sense of humor—the one I was born with—had to be put in cold storage when I settled down at Birge’s Corners and began to borrow the minister’s library in sections. They just could not have understood it. But I do believe it is reviving.”
“A sense of humor is the most precious thing in the world,” Hobart told her. “It ranks with a sense of honor. And if you had to repress it, I am glad you merely put it in cold storage. Sing this scale, please,” he added, rapidly striking the notes.
Thurley sang it; then another and some exercises which she thought difficult and felt proud of having done so easily. They were exercises the city organist had halfway taught her and which she had practised diligently by means of Betsey Pilrig’s parlor organ.
“Some more—lightly, quickly—no, no, you’re hissing—try mi—mi-mi—so.” Again she followed the notes cleverly—so she thought.
Hobart interrupted with a discord. “You naturally breathe well, but you are frightened. You are not singing but faking, and trying to make me think you are not. My dear young person, if I were not able to tell in half a second who is really singing and who is not, I would be forced to abdicate instanter. Now either go home and rest up and take off that company manner and then come back here and sing or admit you cannot sing or else—sing!” He rested his hands on the keys again.