"You could not have chosen anything I should have liked better. 'Annie Laurie' will never grow old."
She sang the first verse alone. Then she said:
"I thought that you were going to sing with me. Will you not put in a bass?" And a little mischievously: "It will at least help to drown the discords of this old instrument."
"I was enjoying your voice so much," he replied, "that I did not wish to spoil the pleasure by adding mine. But, if you wish it, I'll join you."
Other songs, mostly old Scotch favourites, followed. Sinclair noted that she did not choose war-songs as when she sang at the consulate. Her mood was different, and she chose those into which the singers of her race had poured all their pathos and their tenderness.
As they talked in the intervals, and sometimes prolonged the selection of a song, the hesitation and mutual reserve wore off and soon they found themselves conversing with the quiet confidence of those who had long been friends. There seemed to be no room for misunderstandings.
Again and again Sinclair caught himself wondering if this were the same girl who had badgered him so unmercifully a few weeks before. Or was this present situation only a bright dream, from which he would awaken to find himself still the object of her badinage and laughter? "Well," he thought to himself, "dream or no dream, I'll enjoy it while it lasts and hope that I may be long in waking up."
But there were a few things which reminded him that it was not a dream. Mrs. MacAllister did not enter quite so heartily into sympathy with her daughter's mood as did Dr. Sinclair. Perhaps it was not to be expected. More than once she endeavoured to interject her disapproval of their choice of songs.
"What are you going to sing next, Jessie?" she asked when three love songs had followed one another without a break.
"'Robin Adair.'"