It was so sweet that it hurt--hurt horribly and
deliciously, as only Italian music can hurt. Other men sing with their
brains, with their souls, but Italians sing with their blood, their
veins, the core of their hearts. They _are_ their songs, as larks are.

The voice brought Jim to me, and snatched him away again. It set him far
off at a hopeless distance, across steep purple chasms of dreamland. It
dragged my heart out, and then poured it full, full of an unknown elixir
of life and love, which was mine, yet out of reach forever. It showed me
my past hopes and future sorrows floating on the current of my own blood
like ships of a secret argosy sailing through the night to some unknown
goal. So now, when I have told you what it did to me, you will know that
voice was like no voice I ever heard, except Caruso's. It _was_ like
his--astonishingly like; and hardly had the last note of "Mario's" song
of love and death dropped into silence when the singer began anew with
one of Caruso's own Neapolitan folk-songs, "Mama Mia."

I had forgotten Mother and Father Beckett--even Brian--everyone except
my lost Jim Wyndham and myself. But suddenly a touch on my hand made me
start. The little old lady's, small, cool fingers were on mine, "My
daughter, what do the words mean?" she asked. "What is that boy saying
to his mama?" Her eyes were blue lakes of unshed tears, for the thought
of her son knocked at her heart.

"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 compan