I
Life aboard the _Skipping Goone_ was much sobered by the death of the
little baby. Lili, though her grief was genuine enough, found a vague
refuge in knowing herself a center of sympathetic interest; but for a
time Jerome was inconsolable.
However, though life was saddened, it must nevertheless go on. Some of
the principal songbirds were preening themselves in anticipation of the
furor they hoped to create in Africa. Fortunes had been made there. And
you never could tell who might be listening. The excitement all round
was naturally rendered much more pointed by the wonderful thing that
had happened to Miss Valentine in Manila. It had come at last. She had
received a cable message from America advising her that a private hearing
was being arranged in Cape Town, and stating that a contract offer might
depend on the verdict. The cable was signed by a name of such awful
significance that the enraptured recipient trembled violently whenever
she pronounced it, even to herself.
In her more confident moments Miss Valentine assured herself (and every
one else, for that matter) that her reputation and fortune were already
firmly established; but, being only human, and not so very far along,
even yet, from the lowliness of her choir-singing days in Galesburg, the
fortunate artist also experienced moments when she felt doomed to certain
disaster. Something would be sure to go wrong. “I’ll be so nervous I
can’t sing a note!” she confided to the contralto. But everybody told
her of course she’d sing all right, and everybody was vociferous in
congratulation exactly in proportion to the acuteness of his or her
secret envy.
Mr. Curry smiled, then sighed. The bolt had fallen, though not, after
all, quite from the blue. Bolts of this sort never did fall altogether
from the blue any more. It only meant that in a little while another
ornament would find its way on to his already crowded hands.
Naturally Miss Valentine spent nearly all of her time at the dinky
piano in the cabin they called their “assembly saloon.” Early and late
she worked, and swore a great deal under her breath, or sometimes
proclaimingly, if the note happened to be _very_ bad, and sometimes she
would hurl her music on the floor and stamp on it, for she was a very
temperamental artist indeed. But when things seemed to be going well,
then she would be just lovely to every one, and say nice things like
this: “I think you have one of the nicest contralto voices I’ve ever
heard, dear,” or: “Now I’ve got those wretched Cs and D’s where I want
them, I’m going to sit down and knit all day on a sweater for poor little
Lili.”
One day she came running up on deck to Mr. Curry, crying miserably: “It’s
gone! I can’t sing a single note any more that doesn’t sound like a tin
whistle, and I feel just like drowning myself!”
“What’s all this?” asked the impresario cheerily.
“I tell you I can’t even get up to a B♭ without screeching,” she wailed,
weeping copiously into a very small handkerchief. “And I think it’s
just a shame, with the hearing so close!” Some of the songbirds began
whispering a little.
Mr. Curry gave her one of his finest smiles. “You’ve just gotten yourself
all tied up into about a hundred knots, that’s all. Don’t tell me it’s
not so—can’t I see? Haven’t I got eyes? Now listen to me, my dear child.
We’re going to walk up and down here on deck a few turns, and you’re
going to take some very deep breaths of this sea air—oh, not little
sniffs like that! What do you think you are, a rabbit? And now,” he ended
confidently, “we’ll see what’s wrong in mighty short order!”