Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/62

  “Silently!” cried Tommy. “I had dozens and dozens of other things upstairs to sing to them, but I thought I was suiting my programme to the place and the people. I looked at them during luncheon and made my selections.”

“You are flattering the week-enders.”

“I believe you are musical,” she ventured, looking up at him as she played with a tuft of sea-pinks.

“I am passionately fond of singing, so I seldom go to concerts,” he answered, somewhat enigmatically. “Your programme was an enchanting one to me.”

“It was good of its kind, if the audience would have helped me,”—and Tommy’s lip trembled a little; “but perhaps I could have borne that, if it had n’t been for the—plate.”

“Not a pleasant custom, and a new one to me,” said Appleton.

“And to me!” (Here she made a little grimace of disgust.) “I knew beforehand I had to face the plate—but the contents! Where did you sit?”