"But your voice is not disabled. You sing?"
"A little; but I'm out of practice."
"No matter. Come! Here's a martial piece, suitable for the times: 'To Greece we give our shining blades.'"
It was one of the Captain's favorites; and as the two voices, resonant and penetrating, rose on the chorus in perfect accord, the singers thought they had never sung so well before, and each attributed it to the excellent time of the other. Nero and another person listened at the aperture of the folding-doors: Nero, who was musical, going through a show of vehement applause, and throwing himself about in a manner that would have made his fortune as an Ethiopian minstrel.
Other songs followed in rapid succession; and when the Captain sang "Annie Lawrie," con espressione, accompanying himself on the piano with one hand, Barbara exclaimed, with a frank burst of genuine admiration,—
"Oh, but you sang that superbly!"
She had quite forgotten her anxiety about her father's return.
Then they talked of the popular composers; and from music their conversation glanced on literature; and from literature the Captain ventured on the dangerous ground of politics.
"Are you incorrigibly a Rebel?" he asked.
Barbara looked down. She feared that any confession of change in her notions would seem too much like insincerity.