Then he cleared his throat, and ran up the scale once or twice as he had heard artists do while waiting for their turn.
"Are you in good voice, Mr. Kelton?" enquired Priscilla. "Your song is the next."
"My dear young lady," he said, "I am not like one of those tenors of long ago who could never be depended on from one day to another--Sims Reeves, you know--people of that stamp. No, I am always to be depended on. I am always at my best."
"I don't know what nerves are," he replied.
And then they heard the sound of the applause that marked the finish of the duet which, in the programme, preceded "In the Land of Sleep." Priscilla jumped up from her seat. Mr. Kelton rose with the smile of a man of leisure and gave a self-satisfied glance at the little mirror. He improved the set of his collar by a deft little push and then saw to his cuffs.
"Don't be in a hurry; there's plenty of time," he remarked to Priscilla. He had no idea of falling into line with the ordinary amateurs who aimed at expedition. He knew the importance of making an audience slightly impatient for his appearance. He even knew the value of opening the door leading on to the platform and allowing it to close again--giving them a false alarm or two after a prolonged delay. He smiled at Priscilla g it when, after that trick of opening the door and closing it on a blank, there was a movement among the people in the hall. But this was just where Priscilla drew the line. She detested being associated with such trickery. She pulled open the door and walked on to the platform alone, making a straight line to the piano, and acknowledging in no way the warm greeting of the audience.
She had spoiled his _entree_, and he was well aware of this fact. The audience had wasted their applause upon her; he only came in for the tail end of it. And he was not artist enough to be able at a moment's notice to hide his discomfiture under the ingratiating smile of the professional, which is supposed to make the most critical audience become genial. His smile was the leer of a Cherokee when his successful opponent is removing his scalp.
Priscilla spread out the paper of the music and struck the first chord of the accompaniment. At the right moment the singer's voice came in, and he meandered through the stanza, reaching up for his high note in the repetition of the refrain and taking it easily. There was a considerable amount of applause at this point, and upon that applause Priscilla the pianist had counted, when she ran pleasantly into that very expressive "symphony" which every one knows makes so effective a link from stanza to stanza of "In the Land of Sleep." The accompaniment was still running along soothingly and dreamily when the vocalist once more took up the theme, and was perfectly well satisfied with his treatment of it until he got to the refrain. Then he became aware of the fact that his voice was rather strained. He felt that he must make an effort to do that high note, and when the moment came, he strained. He did not quite achieve it; every one that had ears to hear knew that he was flat; and he knew it himself. He found it necessary to resist the temptation--for the first time--of holding the note, and he finished the refrain in a hurry. Led by the Bowlby-Suthersts, however, the audience gave some applause to the second stanza; and once again Priscilla was grateful for it. She flashed into the introduction to the third stanza--the showy one, with the high A introduced twice, the second time with a grace-note that adds to its effect.