Hobart Eddy nodded with an air of polite concern. “The Grosbeaks?” he said over, uncertainly. “Do—do I know them? I am so deuced forgetful.”
“Ah, well, now,” said Pelleas, “I don’t know that they are on your list. But you are on theirs, if you care to be. I suggest that you make their acquaintance. They’re birds.”
Hobart looked startled. But Pelleas enjoys as much as any one being momentarily misunderstood and he smiled back at Hobart as if he were proud of his idiom.
“I must get you to present me,” Hobart seriously murmured.
“Do,” Pelleas said with enjoyment. “Come over in the park with us any day now—though May and June are rather better. I never knew them come up from the South so early. Splendid family and all that,” Pelleas added; “Zamelodia Ludoviciana, you know. Charming connections.”
“O, I say,” said Hobart, “what a jolly idiot I am! I thought you were in earnest, you know.”
“I never was more in earnest in my life,” Pelleas protested. “You really must see them. Little brown lady-bird with her gold under her wings. Male with a glorious rose all over his breast and a song—Hobart, you should hear his song. It’s a little like a robin’s song, but all trilled out and tucked in and done in doubles and triplets and burrs—and a question at the end. You never heard one sing at night? You never went over in the park or out in the country to hear them sing at night? Etarre—do show him how it goes.”
I have a fancy for singing the bird notes that we love and Pelleas, who could as easily hem a thing as to sing it, will in Spring keep me all hours at this pastime. Once he woke me in the night to reclaim the song of the orchard oriole—and next morning Nichola sorely discomfited me by observing that long after midnight she had heard owls in the chimney. But we persist in the delight and so now I sang for Hobart the song of the grosbeak:—
“it goes,” said I, “but the next one you hear may be quite—quite different! There is no tune to the song, ever—but exquisite rhythm. O, and such arch anxiety he is in, Hobart; you cannot think. And when he is done you’ve got to believe the way he does because of his little question which is never ‘Do you think?’ but always ‘Don’t you think?’ Fancy your never having heard him.”