Poor Louise with her “soul yet drunk from thy first kiss.” A shiver ran through the words that should have been ecstatic. Joy knew that Louise didn’t know what she was talking about. Then she pulled herself together, floating a long, soft high note that left the air palpitant and hushed. She ought to try to be Louise—but somehow she couldn’t, with that man off in the shadows, and Jerry sitting so near, and such a cross accompanist, and such unpleasant memories disturbing the thought of her song. As far as interpretive value went, the song was a failure. But the lovely floated high notes, and the golden middle register, led the song through to its soaring climax. Then on the whispered repetition, “je tremble délicieusement,” Joy broke down. She simply could not bring forth another note. The accompanist put in a few chords and stopped: Pa Graham came out of the shadows and walked up to Joy. He took her face in his hands and turned it gently to the window. “Life and work—those are all you need, my child,” he said. “You are going to learn to sing so that the tears will flow or the smiles will dance, at your will.” “Then you’re no longer discouraged, Pa?” Jerry demanded triumphantly from her seat. “I do not know her well enough to say that. The greater a voice, the more work there is to do, to reach the perfection that voice demands. And there is one thing, Louise——Oh, yes, child, I’ll make you into a Louise, and many other things—it is not from lack of voices that there are so few great singers—it is because so few are willing to pay the price—the heartbreak of the years of toil and self-denial.” Jerry rose, pulling out a box of cigarettes. It had been a great self-restraint on her part not to light up before. “Then you think it would be worth it for her to try?” “Worth it!” He turned almost fiercely to Joy. “It’s not worth it if the years of labor will not seem pleasure—if you do not enjoy every step along the way.” Joy felt heady with excitement. Enjoy it? Well—she had never thought so before; but with the wail of a wronged Louise air still in her ears, the magical atmosphere of music, busts, pictures, and the eager faces around her, the voices of her heritage tore her soul with their insistence. Almost as if she were mesmerised, she heard the words leave her lips: “I—would—enjoy—every step along the way.” And then, with the familiar puffing of Jerry’s cigarette, things seemed to quiet down. The accompanist, wearing a slightly altered demeanour, left the room, and Joy and Pa came down from the platform.