But she was still holding her voice in. “Louder,” I urged. “Come, come! Sing!”
She could not resist my appeal. Out came the tones, round and rich, and colored with the inexpressible sorrow that is the life-breath of that exquisite song.
I leaned right forward on the table. I could not take my eyes from her broad white throat and the softly rounded chin above it and the finely muscular lips that framed themselves around the tones with a slight flaring out that suggested the bell of a trumpet.
The tears came flooding to my eyes. There was timbre in that voice, and a wonderful floating yet firm resonance. When it swelled out in the climax I could feel the sound vibrations throbbing against my ear drums. Then it shrank in volume, and died down until the song ended in a breathless sob that yet was perfect music. And after she had done, and was sitting there motionless, brooding, with downcast face, it seemed to me I could still hear those sad, breathless words, and could still feel that gentle throbbing against my ear.
“You have learned how to sing that song,” said I.
“Yes,” she replied, “I have learned how to sing it.”
We were in a sort of poignant dream—I still gazing at her; she still downcast, with the light gone out of her eyes.
Then, directly outside my door in the hall, we heard a man clear his throat. An old man, unmistakably. And we heard heavy footsteps creaking slowly off toward the stairs. God knows how long he had been listening there!
She said nothing. Merely sat with her hands in her lap. But she seemed to me to go limp. Certainly her face grew slowly pale until it was quite white, as I had first seen it.
“I should have known better,” I muttered. “I am a fool!”