If I were a beautiful woman, I'd learn to play a mandolin.
"Sing, Helen," begged Kitty in a whisper.
In a voice that began tremulously, low and faltering, and slowly gained courage, she sang the ballad she had been playing. It was easy to see that she was not a musician; but, as she forgot her listeners, we forgot everything but her.
Miss Bryant put down the compasses and scale rule she had been restlessly fingering, and her keen eyes softened and dilated. Kitty dropped on the floor at Helen's feet; the hush in the room was breathless. Reid sat in the dark, still as a statue; I clenched my hands and held silence.
The words were as simple as the air. But the voice, so clear, so sweet, so joyous, like Helen's own loveliness--to hear it was an ecstasy. We were listening to the rarest notes that ever had fallen on human ears--unless the tale of the sirens be history.
As the last note died, the fire leaped, dropped and left us in dusk and silence. Kitty buried her face against Helen's dress. My heart was pounding until in my own ears it sounded like an anvil chorus. I don't know whether I was very happy or very miserable. I would have died to hear that voice again. It is the truth!
With a sudden sob and a sniffing that told of tears unashamed, Miss Bryant found frivolous words to veil our emotion.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she quavered, "this is a high-class concert; three dollars each for tickets, please. Helen, you don't know how to sing, but-- don't learn! Come Pros."--the big drops ran down her cheeks; "I've got to look up a story in the morning."
"Wait a minute," said Reid, his long, delicately shaped fingers trembling. "Let me recover on something."
Picking up Kitty's banjo, he smote the strings uncertainly and half sang, half declaimed:-"'With my Hya! Heeya! Heeya! Hullah! Haul! Oh, the green that thunders aft along the deck! Are you sick of towns and men? You must sign and sail again, For it's Johnny Bowlegs, pack your kit and trek!'
"By Jove! Kipling's right; nothing like a banjo, is there? Now then, Young Person, I'm with you. Good night; good night!"
While his voice was still echoing down the stairway, Miss Bryant came running up again.
"Say, got a photograph of yourself, Helen?" she asked.
She had apparently quite recovered from her emotion, and her tone expressed an odd mixture of business and affection.
"I believe if I showed Big Tom a picture of you," she explained, "he'd run a story--there's your science, you know, and your music--on the Society page, maybe."