The effect was wooden. There was no pity, no sorrow, no foreboding in the lines at all. Dick shook his head.
"What am I to say to Hilarie?" she asked.
Dick passed his fingers through his hair. Then he sat down again, and began to laugh—laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.
"You a tragedy queen!" he said. "Not even if you were over head and ears in love. Now, on the other hand, if I had my fiddle in my hand, and were to play—so—that air which you remember"—he put out his legs straight and sat upright, and pretended the conduct of a fiddle and bow—"could you dance, do you think, as you used to dance two years ago?"
She stood before him, seeming to listen. Then she gently moved her head as if touched by the music. Then she raised her arms and began to dance, with such ease and grace and lightness as can only belong to the dancer born.
"Thank you, Molly." He stood up as if the music was over. "We shall confer further upon this point—and other points. When may I come again to visit Miss Molly Pennefather?"
He caught her head in his hands and kissed her gaily on her forehead—after all, he had no more manners than can be expected of a tramp—and vanished.
"If Dick could only play 'Desdemona'!" she murmured, looking after him at the closed door. "Why, he actually looked the part. I suppose he has been in love. If I could only do it so!" She imitated his gestures, and broke out into singing—
"The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow."
"No," she said; "it won't do. I don't feel a bit like Desdemona. I am only myself, and I am filled with the most unholy longing for money—for riches, for filthy lucre, which we are told to despise."