Chapter 23

There was little talk that same evening after dinner. Paula, singing at the piano, disconcerted Terrence in the midst of an apostrophe on love. He quit a phrase midmost to listen to the something new he heard in her voice, then slid noiselessly across the room to join Leo at full length on the bearskin. Dar Hyal and Hancock likewise abandoned the discussion, each isolating himself in a capacious chair. Graham, seeming least attracted, browsed in a current magazine, but Dick observed that he quickly ceased turning the pages. Nor did Dick fail to catch the new note in Paula's voice and to endeavor to sense its meaning.

When she finished the song the three sages strove to tell her all at the same time that for once she had forgotten herself and sung out as they had always claimed she could. Leo lay without movement or speech, his chin on his two hands, his face transfigured.

"It's all this talk on love," Paula laughed, "and all the lovely thoughts Leo and Terrence ... and Dick have put into my head."

Terrence shook his long mop of iron-gray hair.

"Into your heart you'd be meaning," he corrected. "'Tis the very heart and throat of love that are yours this night. And for the first time, dear lady, have I heard the full fair volume that is yours. Never again plaint that your voice is thin. Thick it is, and round it is, as a great rope, a great golden rope for the mooring of argosies in the harbors of the Happy Isles."

"And for that I shall sing you the Gloria," she answered, "to celebrate the slaying of the dragons by Saint Leo, by Saint Terrence ... and, of course, by Saint Richard."

Dick, missing nothing of the talk, saved himself from speech by crossing to the concealed sideboard and mixing for himself a Scotch and soda.

While Paula sang the Gloria, he sat on one of the couches, sipping his drink and remembering keenly. Once before he had heard her sing like that--in Paris, during their swift courtship, and directly afterward, during their honeymoon on the All Away.

A little later, using his empty glass in silent invitation to Graham, he mixed highballs for both of them, and, when Graham had finished his, suggested to Paula that she and Graham sing the "Gypsy Trail."

She shook her head and began Das Kraut Ver-gessenheit.

"She was not a true woman, she was a terrible woman," the song's close wrung from Leo. "And he was a true lover. She broke his heart, but still he loved her. He cannot love again because he cannot forget his love for her."

"And now, Red Cloud, the Song of the Acorn," Paula said, smiling over to her husband. "Put down your glass, and be good, and plant the acorns."

Dick lazily hauled himself off the couch and stood up, shaking his head mutinously, as if tossing a mane, and stamping ponderously