Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/327

 passed him by as a street beggar asking, for her, only the alms of a little happiness. And now, the houses and the people, and all the activities of the world, were the background and the unregarded chorus for a life that was to hold, with her, the glaring centre of the stage.

It was a brisk, chill morning. He wore a spring overcoat of which the collar was so soiled that he had turned it up to conceal its condition from anyone who might walk behind him. He had lost one of his gloves, and for that reason he carried his left hand in the pocket of his coat. His face was lean; his eyes had a wistful emptiness; his hair, untrimmed, came down in a ragged fringe on the upturned collar of his coat.

  had been to the studio of a Mr. Barber, a teacher of singing whom she had known in Canada; and when Don called on her, in the afternoon, she had the worried look of discouragement which he understood so well. She had been told that there was nothing for her in her singing or her music—nothing. The church choirs were out of the question, for they paid no salaries worth speaking of, except to the soloists, and she had not voice enough for solo parts. The grand opera chorus—and all other such—had been filled up since the trying out in August. There was no possibility of getting piano pupils unless she could find a position 