“Oh! you were quite happy. You seemed to get on quite well with your hostess. Who was that dark-complexioned lady next to you, with some truly wonderful diamonds?”
“Mrs. Jacobs, the wife of a South African millionaire. She told me that herself and that she was a widow!”
“Ha! ha! Do we want to sit for a dusky portrait?”
“Don’t....” He tried to look very hurt, but it was not so successful as earlier in the evening. The dinner had been quite good and the champagne better. Hamilton’s eyes were a little too bright to look very grieved.
“Did she not give you a commission?”
“Well, what if she did? Why do you always sneer at me. And it’s your portrait I want to paint. What do I care for her commission, even if it is a lucrative one. Parchment and diamonds—ugh! Tell me, when will you come again to the studio?”
“Hush, Mrs. Milton is going to sing. You must remain absolutely quiet.”
The first notes of Brahms’ “Sapphische Ode” throbbed through the inharmonious room. Margaret Milton had the deep, pure contralto that makes the listener think of all things tender and true and intimate, the things that no man or woman says, even to his twin soul, but sometimes in the watches of the night whispers to the shadows. And the shadows enfold them and carry them away into the Hinterland beyond the setting of the sun, with the poignant tears and the imperishable kisses, the pain and the joy and the passion of mortals.
The timbre of the voice was singularly sympathetic and emotional, and Claudia instantly fell under its enchantment. Somehow she felt that the woman was singing to her, guiding her, pleading with her. She sang several times, and then, after “Still wie die Nacht” by Claudia’s request, she began to sing a song that always made Claudia’s heart throb and ache intolerably. Her throat swelled and burned on this night, and the tears waited on her eyelids. She forgot the indifferent, politely bored company, as she listened to the exquisite strains of that wonderful love-song, “Ich liebe dich.”