"But, of course not!" answered the girl, greatly surprised at all these unnecessary entreaties. "I am always pleased to sing." And she drew off her long loose gloves and seated herself at the piano without the least affectation of reluctance. Then, glancing at her husband with a bright smile, she asked, "What song do you think will be best, Philip?"
"One of those old Norse mountain-songs," he answered.
She played a soft minor prelude--there was not a sound in the room now--everybody pressed towards the piano, staring with a curious fascination at her beautiful face and diamond-crowned hair. One moment--and her voice, in all its passionate, glorious fullness, rang out with a fresh vibrating tone that thrilled to the very heart--and the foolish crowd that gaped and listened was speechless, motionless, astonished, and bewildered.
A Norse mountain-song was it? How strange, and grand, and wild! George Lorimer stood apart--his eyes ached with restrained tears. He knew the melody well--and up before him rose the dear solemnity of the Altenguard hills, the glittering expanse of the Fjord, the dear old farmhouse behind its cluster of pines. Again he saw Thelma as he had seen her first--clad in her plain white gown, spinning in the dark embrasure of the rose-wreathed window--again the words of the self-destroyed Sigurd came back to his recollection, "Good things may come for others--but for you the heavens are empty!" He looked at her now,--Philip's wife--in all the splendor of her rich attire;--she was lovelier than ever, and her sweet nature was as yet unspoilt by all the wealth and luxury around her.
"Good God! what an inferno she has come into!" he thought vaguely. "How will she stand these people when she gets to know them? The Van Clupps, the Rush-Marvelles, and others like them,--and as for Clara Winsleigh--" He turned to study her ladyship attentively. She was sitting quite close to the piano--her eyes were cast down, but the rubies on her bosom heaved quickly and restlessly, and she furled and unfurled her fan impatiently. "I shouldn't wonder," he went on meditating gravely, "if she doesn't try and make some mischief somehow. She looks it."
At that moment Thelma ceased singing, and the room rang with applause. Herr Machtenklinken was overcome with admiration.
"It is a voice of heaven!" he said in a rapture.
The fair singer was surrounded with people.
"I hope," said Mrs. Van Clupp, with her usual ill-bred eagerness to ingratiate herself with the titled and wealthy, "I hope you will come and see me, Lady Errington? I am at home every Friday evening to my friends."