Page:Our Little Girl (1923).pdf/44

 people, mentioned that he had had a most amusing interview recently with an old Italian singing teacher who told him that American girls had the most wonderful voices in the world but that they went out so much that they rarely made the most of their natural gifts.

“Dorothy sings, you know,” said Mrs. Loamford.

“Professionally?” inquired Tommy.

“Not yet,” answered her mother, “but we have hopes.”

“Studying now?” asked Tommy.

“We expect to start next fall,” said Mrs. Loamford, editorially.

“Concert or opera?” queried Tommy.

“Oh, you must know something about music!” exclaimed Mrs. Loamford. “Are you a music critic, too?”

“I do an occasional piece about music,” he said. “Most of the interviews with singers and so on.”

Here Tommy went out of the category of young men visitors and became an authority.

“You must know how many of them started, then,” suggested Mrs. Loamford.

Tommy nodded.

“I wish you could hear Dorothy sing,” she continued.

“I’d like to,” assented Tommy.

“But I don’t sing—yet,” Dorothy demurred.

She realized that a performance was inevitable, but it wouldn’t do to seem anxious.

“That might be said of a good many Metropolitan stars,” Tommy observed.

Mrs. Loamford was delighted.

“Really, Dorothy, you ought to sing for Mr. Borge,” she urged.

“But I haven’t studied,” objected Dorothy.

This young man probably was critical. Why sing for him?