"Marchand composed it for the express purpose of trying out voices," Stella said. "It _is_ a stunt." "You'll have to play your own accompaniment," Charlie grinned. "That's too much for me." "Oh, just so you give me a little support here and there," Stella told him. "I can't sing sitting on a piano stool." Benton made a face at the music and struck the keys. It seemed to Stella nothing short of a miracle. She had been mute so long. She had almost forgotten what a tragedy losing her voice had been. And to find it again, to hear it ring like a trumpet. It did! It was too big for the room. She felt herself caught up in a triumphant ecstasy as she sang. She found herself blinking as the last note died away. Her brother twisted about on the piano stool, fumbling for a cigarette. "And still they say they can't come back," he remarked at last. "Why, you're better than you ever were, Stella. You've got the old sweetness and flexibility that dad used to rave about. But your voice is bigger, somehow different. It gets under a man's skin." She picked up the baby from the floor, began to play with him. She didn't want to talk. She wanted to think, to gloat over and hug to herself this miracle of her restored voice. She was very quiet, very much absorbed in her own reflections until it was time--very shortly--to put Jack Junior in his bed. That was a function she made wholly her own. The nurse might greet his waking whimper in the morning and minister to his wants throughout the day, but Stella "tucked him in" his crib every night. And after the blue eyes were closed, she sat there, very still, thinking. In a detached way she was conscious of hearing Charlie leave. Later, when she was sitting beside her dressing table brushing her hair, Fyfe came in. He perched himself on the foot rail of the bed, looking silently at her. She had long grown used to that. It was a familiar trick of his. "How did it happen that you've never tried your voice lately?" he asked after a time. "I gave it up long ago," she said. "Didn't I ever tell you that I used to sing and lost my voice?" "No," he answered. "Charlie did just now. You rather took my breath away. It's wonderful. You'd be a sensation in opera." "I might have been," she corrected. "That was one of my little dreams. You don't know what a grief it was to me when I got over that throat trouble and found I couldn't sing. I used to try and try--and my voice would break every time. I lost all heart to try after a while. That was when I wanted to take up nursing, and they wouldn't let me. I haven't thought about singing for an age. I've crooned lullabies to Jacky without remembering that I once had volume enough to drown out an accompanist. Dad was awfully proud of my voice." "You've reason to be proud of it now," Fyfe said slowly. "It's a voice in ten thousand. What are going to do with it?"