"Let me hear you," he said.
"Shall I sing 'Jocelyn' or 'How Like a Bird'?"
"Anything--something simpler."
"Schubert, then, Zoe."
In her straight frock, with its wide patent-leather belt and flat white
collar, the cascade of her hair down over it, Zoe held the center of the
vast studio, singing straight into her mother's eyes.
It seemed to Lilly, at the sound of that voice, not yet cleared of
childish treble, but as ready to rise as a lark, that every ounce of her
blood must be gushing against her throat; so, after it was finished, she
sat on quite dumbly, staring at the manner in which Trieste remained
sitting with his eyes closed.
"Lyric soprano," he said, finally. "Fine! Big! God-given!"
"_Maestro_--you mean that?"
"Heigh-ho!" he said on a sigh, walking over and placing his hand on
Zoe's curls. "I make up my mind I am seeck of this business. I wait only
for this war to live my day quietly in Capri, where I have my _casa_,
and now a new nightingale flies in at my window. Twice now. Ten years
ago comes Carrienta out of just such a clear sky, and once more, when I
am again sure that one voice is only more unmusical than the rest,
comes this--"
Standing there, Lilly was fighting an impulse to faint.
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