The girl looked up at him with a saucy, defiant look. “Do they all obey you here?”
“Ask them.”
“That's what,” cried Alec Murray, “especially the girls.”
She hesitated a few moments, evidently meditating rebellion, then turning to Barney, who was playing softly the air that had been asked for, “You, too, obey, I see,” she said.
“Generally—, always when I like,” he replied, continuing to play.
“Oh, well,” shrugging her shoulders, “I suppose I must then.” And she began:
“The sun shines bright on de old Kentucky home.”
Again that hush fell upon the crowd. The face of the singer, with its dark, romantic beauty touched with the magic of the moonlight, the voice soft, mellow, vibrant with passion, like the deeper notes of a 'cello, supported by the weird chords of Barney's violin, held them breathless. No voice joined in the chorus. As she sang, the subtle telepathic waves came back from her audience to the girl, and with ever-deepening passion and abandon she poured forth into the moonlit silence the full throbbing tide of song. The old air, simple and time-worn, took on a new richness of tone colour and a fulness of volume suggestive of springs of unutterable depths. Even Dick's gay air of command surrendered to the spell. As before, silence followed the song.
“But you did not do your part,” she said, smiling up at him with a very pretty air of embarrassment.
“No,” said Dick solemnly, “we didn't dare.”