‘Of course you were the lady; I wish I’d seen you,’ said Una.
‘I wish you had, child. I had such a triumph after dinner. René and Dr. Break came in. They had quite made up their quarrel, and they told me they had the highest esteem for each other, and I laughed and said, "I heard every word of it up in the tree.” You never saw two men so frightened in your life, and when I said, “What was ‘the subject of your remarks,’ René?” neither of them knew where to look. Oh, I quizzed them unmercifully. They’d seen me jump off the pigsty roof, remember.’
‘But what was the subject of their remarks?’ said Una.
‘Oh, Dr. Break said it was a professional matter, so the laugh was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn’t my triumph. Dad asked me to play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising a new song from London—I don’t always live in trees—for weeks; and I gave it them for a surprise.’
‘What was it?’ said Una. ‘Sing it.’
‘“I have given my heart to a flower.” Not very difficult fingering, but r-r-ravishing sentiment.’
Philadelphia coughed and cleared her throat.
‘I’ve a deep voice for my age and size,’ she explained. ‘Contralto, you know, but it ought to be stronger,’ and she began, her face all dark against the last of the soft pink sunset:
‘I have given my heart to a flower,
Though I know it is fading away,
Though I know it will live but an hour
And leave me to mourn its decay!
‘Isn’t that touchingly sweet? Then the last verse—I wish I had my harp, dear—goes as low as my register will reach.’ She drew in her chin, and took a deep breath: