A Voice in the Wilderness
was bursting with her voice, while the pianist swayed and bent upon his stool with the exuberant sympathy of a brother in art. And when the last rich note had died away he wheeled about, and so sat silent for many moments, looking curiously on her flushed face and panting bosom.
"I can't place your voice," he said, at last. "It's both voices—the most wonderful compass in the world—and the world will tell you so, when you go back to it, as go back you must and shall. May I ask the name of your master?"
"My own name—Bouverie. It was my father. He is dead."
Her eyes glistened.
"You did not go to another?"
"I had no money. Besides, he had lived for what you say; when he died with his dream still a dream, I said I would do the same, and I came up here."
She had turned away. A less tactful interlocutor had sought plainer repudiation of the rash resolve; this one rose and buried himself in more songs.
"I have heard you in Grand Opera, and in something really grand," he said. "Now I want a song, the simpler the better."
Behind his back a daring light came into the moist eyes.
9
