mehow, like the Annie Laurie coschume was right
_white_." He blushed and hastened to apologize. "Not sayin' anything
against that dress you've got on," he said. "I never saw one as fine
as that in all my life. I never saw any woman, never in all my life,
like you. I--I--ma'am"--he flushed, but went on with a Titanic
simplicity--"I _worship_ you, right where you stand, in that there
dress; but--could you--"

"You are an artist yourself!" cried she. "Yes! Wait!"

In an instant she was gone from the room, leaving Tom Osby staring at
the flickering fire, now brighter in the advancing shades of evening.
In perhaps half an hour Alice Strowbridge reappeared. The rich black
laces, and the ripe red rose, and the blazing jewels, all were gone.
She was clad in simple white--and yes! a blue sash was there. The
piled masses of her hair were replaced by two long, glossy braids. By
the grace of the immortal gods all misdeeds were lifted from her that
night. For once in many years she was sincere. Now she was a girl
again, and back at the old home. Those were the southern mountains
half hidden in the twilight; and yonder was the moon of the old days,
swinging up again. There was the gallery at the window of the old
Georgia home, and the gate, and the stairs, and the hedgerow, and the
trailing vines, and the voices of little birds; and Youth--Youth, the
unspeakable glory of Youth--it all was hers once more! The souls of a
thousand Georgia mocking-birds--the soul of that heritage which came to
her out of her environment--lay in her throat that hour.

And so, not to an audience, but to an auditor--nay, perhaps, after all,
to the audience of Heart's Desire, an audience of unsated souls--she
sang, although of visible audience there was but one man, who sat
crumpled up, shaken, undone.

She could not, being a woman, oblige any man by direct compliance; she
could not deprive herself of her own little triumph. Or perhaps,
deliberately, she sought to give this solitary listener that which it
would have cost thousands of dollars for a wider public to hear. She
sang first the leading _arias_ of her more prominent operatic roles.
She sang the Page's song, which had been hers in her first appearance
on a critical stage. "_Nobil signors_," she sang, her voice
lingering. And then presently there fell from her lips the sparkling
measures of Coquette, indescribably light, indescribably brilliant in
her rendition. Melody after me