"It is nodding but children—and they sleep!" he hissed. "Oh, but listen, listen! And I offered her fifteen hundert dollars for two hours only of that!"
The other man peeped behind the curtains in his turn, and seizing Caroline by the arm tiptoed with her to a farther room.
"What—who—what is the meaning of this?" he whispered hoarsely. "That child—where——"
Caroline rubbed her eyes. The golden voice rose and fell around her.
"General—Delia," she muttered, and stumbled against him. He lifted her limp little body and laid it gently on a leather sofa.
"Another time," he said softly to the other man, "I—we cannot talk with you now. Will you excuse us?"
The man looked longingly at the curtains.
"She will never do more well than that. Never!" he hissed. "Oh, my friend, hear it grow soft! Yes, yes, I am going."
It seemed to Caroline that in a dream some one with a red face and glasses askew shook her by the shoulder and said to her sternly, "Sh! sh! Listen to me. To-day you hear a great artist—hey? Vill you forget it? I must go because they do not vant me, but you vill stay and listen. There is here no such voice. Velvet! Honey! Sh! sh!" and he went the way of dreams.
The man who stayed looked long through the curtains.