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 like this before—never!" she whispered to Arturo. "I never thought there could be a moonlight night when the moon wasn't the most beautiful thing in it. To-night it's just a lamp to give illumination. Do you suppose they'll play the Pastorale? I've learned it, and if they play it I'm afraid I couldn't help singing it. I honestly believe I couldn't keep it under!"

She had been in earnest when she said that she must either sing or weep; a song was in her throat, and like those Raonese musicians down by the small golden sparks, she "knew how." Somewhere among the mysterious, still figures of the listeners was the man of whom she so continually found herself thinking—because, perhaps, he thought of her; but just for this while she had forgotten that she deliberately intended a picturesque meeting with him. An overpowering sense of beauty was upon her; wings seemed to flutter ineffably in her breast; and almost unbearably she wanted to sing with the music that came lifting and lifting to the height where she stood.

She was trembling.

"It will be beautiful if you sing," Arturo said. "There is no reason you should not."

Down in the deep semicircular shadow of the amphitheatre they began to play the Pastorale; and