"It isn't a boy who sings, dear," I said. "It's supposed to be a young man who tries to tell his mother all about his love, but it is too big for any words he can find. He says she must remember how she felt herself when she was in love, and then she will understand what's in his heart."
"Oh, it's wonderful!" she whispered. "How _young_ it sounds! Can it be a _man_ singing? It seems too beautiful for anything but a gramophone!"
We broke out laughing, and the little lady blushed in shame. "I mean, it's like one of the great singers they make records of," she explained. "There, he's stopped. Oh, James, don't let him go! We _must_ hear him again. Couldn't you go next door and thank him? Couldn't you beg him to sing some more?"
An Englishman would sooner have died a painful death then obey; but, unabashed, the American husband flung wide open the folding doors.
At the piano sat the short, square-built young man of the Red Cross taxi. Leaning with both elbows on the instrument stood the doll-like figure of his companion, the girl in nurse's dress. His back and her profile were turned our way, but at the sound of the opening door he wheeled on the stool, and both stared at Mr. Beckett. Also they stared past him at me. Why at me, and not the others, I could never have guessed then.
Our little room was lit by red-shaded candles on the table, while the _salon_ adjoining blazed with electricity. As the doors opened, it was like the effect of a flashlight for a photograph. I saw that the man and the girl resembled each other in feature; nevertheless, there was a striking difference between the two. It wasn't only that he was squarely built, with a short throat, and a head shaped like Caruso's, whereas she was slight, with a small, high-held head on a slender neck. The chief difference lay in expression. The man--who now looked younger than I had thought--had a dark, laughing face, gay and defiant as a Neapolitan street boy. It might be evil, it might be good. The girl, who could be no more than twenty, was sullen in her beauty as a thundercloud.
The singer jumped up, and took a few steps forward, while the girl stood still and gloomed.
"I hope I didn't disturb you?" The question was asked of Mr. Beckett, and thrown lightly as a shuttlecock over the old man's head to us in the next room. It was asked in English, with a curiously winning accent, neither Italian nor Irish, but suggesting both.