Alice returned his look with control of every feature. "I did not live there till I was sixteen, if you mean the old home. And if you had been born just across the street you would have had no absurd idea about that little girl in your head. Little girls are not usually interested in little boys across the street. Little boys born thousands of miles away have better chances, I think, of knowing them. And it is better so--for _they_, at least, don’t know what absurd, selfish little things girls across the street are."
But the force of everything she said was swept away by his manner. "Only give me the same street and the meanest house in it!" His intensity would not be answered. "_I_ would have taken the chances of winning."
"And I’d have done it or torn the house down."
Fritzie came back. "I can’t find the music anywhere."
Kimberly rose to go to the music room. "No matter," he persisted, "sing anything you can remember, Mrs. MacBirney--just sing."
It seemed easier, as it always seemed when Kimberly persisted, to consent than to decline. Alice sang an English ballad. Then a scrap--all she could remember--of a Moskowski song; then an Italian ballad. Kimberly leaned on the piano.
"Do you like any of those?" asked Alice with her hands running over the keys.
"Yes, I remember it--in Italy. Sing it again, will you?"
"Tell me about that song," he said when she had repeated it. "It is lovely."
"I don’t know much. It is a very old song."
"Have I ever told you about a villa on Lago Maggiore?"
"Fritzie has told me. She says it is a dream."
"I should like to hear you sing that song there sometime."
The moon was rising when Kimberly left for the train. Fritzie objected to his going. "Give up your trip. Stay over to-night. What’s the difference?"
"I can’t, Fritzie. I’m going like a minstrel show, billed for one-night stands. I have engagements ahead of me all the way and if I miss a day I upset the whole schedule."
"A railroad terminal and reorganization. And I’ve just time to get around and back for Charles’s return."
"Dolly’s country dance," explained Alice.
Fritzie caught his sleeve. "You disappointed us last year."
"You may count on me," promised Kimberly.
Fritzie pouted. "I know what that means, ’don’t count on me!’"