“Madge,” said Graydon, at dinner, “I suppose you will tell me you have practiced over and over again every note you sang this morning.”

“Certainly; some of the more difficult ones hours and hours and months and months.  Herr Brachmann was an amiable dragon in music, and insisted on your knowing what you did know.”

“I thought you would say all this, but it doesn’t account for your singing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know exactly.  There is something you did not get from Herr Brachmann—­scarcely from nature.  It suggests what artists call feeling, and more.”

“Oh, every one has his own method,” said Madge, carelessly, and yet with a visible increase of color.

“‘Method,’ do you call it?  I’m half inclined to think that it might be akin to madness were you very unhappy.  The human voice often has a strange power over me, and I have a theory that it may reveal character more than people imagine.  Why shouldn’t it?  It is the chief medium of our expression, and we may even unconsciously reveal ourselves in our tones.”

“When were you so fanciful before?  What does a professional reveal?”

“Chiefly that she is a trained professional, and yet even the most blase among them give hints as to the compass of their woman-nature.  I think their characters are often suggested quite definitely by their tones.  Indeed, I even find myself judging people by their voices.  Henry’s tones indicate many of his chief traits accurately—­as, for instance, self-reliance, reserve, quiet and unswerving purpose.”

“Well,” asked Mrs. Muir, who was a little obtuse on delicate points, “what did Miss Wildmere’s tones indicate?”

Graydon was slightly taken aback, and suddenly found that he did not like his theory so well as he had thought.  “Miss Wildmere’s tones,” he began, hesitatingly, “suggested this morning little more than a desire to render well the music she sang, and to give pleasure to her listeners.”

“I thought they suggested some self-complacency, which was lost before the morning was over,” added Mr. Muir, dryly.

“Miss Wildmere sang admirably,” exclaimed Madge, warmly, “and could sing much better if she had been trained in a better method and gave more time to the art.  I sang hours every day for nearly two years.  Nothing will take the place of practice, Graydon.  One must develop voice like muscle.”

“You are a generous, sensible critic, Madge,” he said, quietly, although there was a flush of resentment on his face at his brother’s words.  “In the main you are right, but I still hold to my theory.  At least, I believe that in all great music there is a subtle individuality and motif.  Love may be blind, but it is not deaf.  Miss Wildmere gave us good music, not great music.”

Mr. Muir began talking about the weather as if it were the only subject in his mind, and soon afterward Madge went to her room with bowed head and downcast heart.