"I will sing for you," she said haughtily, "and you can judge better!"
With a great sweep of her half bare arm, she brushed aside a portiére and disappeared. A crashing chord rolled out from a piano behind the curtains and ceased abruptly.
"What does your mother sing?" she demanded, not raising her voice, it seemed, and yet they heard her as plainly as when they had leaned against her knee.
"She sings, 'My Heart's Own Heart,'" Miss Honey called back defiantly.
"And it's printed on the song, 'To Madame Edith Holt'!" shrilled Caroline.
The familiar prelude was played with a firm, elastic touch, the opening chords struck, and a great, shining voice, masterful, like a golden trumpet, filled the room. Caroline sat dumb; Miss Honey, instinctively humming the prelude, got up from her foot-stool and followed the music, unconscious that she walked. She had been privileged to hear more good singing in her eight years than most people in twenty-four, had Miss Honey, and she knew that this was no ordinary occasion. She did not know she was listening to one of the greatest voices her country had ever produced—perhaps in time to be known for the head of them all—but her sensitive little soul swelled in her, and her childish jealousy was drowned deep in that river of wonderful sound.
Higher and sweeter and higher yet climbed the melody; one last triumphant leap, and it was over.
"My heart—my heart—my heart's own heart!"
The Princess stood before them in the echoes of her glory, her breath quick, her eyes brilliant.
"Well?" she said, looking straight at Miss Honey, "do I sing as well as your mother?"