"Miela says your earth is very wonderful. Tell me about it."
She listened to his glowing words. "And opera—what is that?" she asked once when he paused.
He described the Metropolitan Opera House, and the newer, finer one in Boston. She listened to his description of the music with flushed face and shining eyes.
"How beautiful—that music! Can you sing, Ollie?"
"No," he admitted, "but I can play a little on a guitar. I wish I had one here."
"I can sing," said the girl: "Miela says I can sing very well."
He leaned toward her, brushing the blue feathers of her wing lightly with his hand.
"Sing for me," he said softly. "I'll bet you sing beautifully."
It may have been their situation, or what they had been through together, or the girl's nearness to him now with her long braids of golden hair, the graceful sweep of her blue‑feathered wings that matched the blue of her eyes, her red lips parted in song—but whatever it was, Mercer thought he had never heard so sweet a voice. She sang a weird little song. It was in a minor key, with curious cadences that died away and ended nowhere—the folk song of a different race, a different planet, yet vibrant with the ever unsatisfied longing of the human soul.
She sang softly, staring straight before her, without thought of her singing, thinking only of her song. She ended with a tender phrase that might have been a sigh—a quivering little half sob that died away in her throat and left the song unfinished. Her hands were folded quiet in her lap; her eyes gazed out on the gray waste of water about the boat.