She was standing by me.
“We must get to work,” she said.
I put a cylinder on the machine. First I looked at her and tried to speak, but could not. I don't know what it could have been that I thought I wanted to say. Probably it was nothing more than the inarticulate emotions her singing had stirred, groping for some outward expression in words.
Her eyes were very bright. I motioned her to go ahead.
“You have n't wound it up,” she said, and chuckled softly. I can not account for her moods. But, for that matter, I think I chuckled with her.
We made twelve records. I believe they will prove to be even better, on the whole, than the ten I destroyed. So, whatever happens, I have again my close-interval scale; again I have the selfish gratification of knowing that I have been enabled to establish a basis of scientific interval comparison for the use of all students of primitive music. It is Heloise's last gift to me, done in a strange sort of joy that, even to-night, breaks triumphantly through the shadow that lies on her life and mine.
She watched me while I removed the last of the twelve cylinders, and carefully sealed it in its separate box, and wrote the label. Then she said:
“Oh, Anthony, it is so—worth while!”
All I could say in reply—so full was my heart—was:
“Yes, dear. Work is the answer.”