Had he been a girl, I
suppose his voice would have been called a deep contralto. As he was a
boy--I do not know how to classify it.
I can say only that, while the mellow music rippled from his parted
lips, it seemed as if the gates of Paradise had fallen ajar. He sang
an old ballad that I had never heard. It was all about "Douglas
Gordon," whose story flowed with the tide of a plaintive accompaniment
which I think he must have arranged himself: for somehow, it was like
him. All the sadness, all the sweetness in this sweet, sad, old world
seemed concentrated in the Boy's angel voice, and listening, I was
Douglas Gordon, and he was putting my life-sorrow into words. He took
my heart and broke it, yet I would not have had him stop. Then,
suddenly, he did stop, and the Contessa was in tears. "Bravo! bravo!"
she cried, diamonds raining over two spasmodic dimples. "Again;
something else."
He sang Christina Rossetti's "Perchance you may remember, perchance
you may forget," and the thrill of it was in the marrow of my bones. I
had scarcely known before what music could do with me, and the voice
of the little Gaeta, following the song, jarred on my ears as she
praised the Boy, and pleaded for more.
"I can't sing again to-night," said he. "I'm sorry, but I can sing
only when I feel in the mood."
"But you will come with Lord Lane, and stay at my villa, which I have
taken at Aix--yes, if only for a few days? The Baron and Baronessa
will be with me, too.
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