In a moment: “You’d be awfully good--if you’d tell me about my voice,” she brought out, and flushed. The surface hardness which she had forced on herself did not go deep yet. Quickly she went on, and her young face grew oddly keen. “You see--Mr. McIvor--I’ve _got_ to make money. And I’ve been told--my voice was--good for it. Not a little money--lots! I hate--getting along--being hard up. If you’d say--that I’ve got a real voice----” McIvor drew his brows together. “Make money! And you seventeen!” he said as if to himself, but his eyes were stern. “Miss Mannering, you are going the wrong way to be an artist. Art is an exacting mistress. The price she asks for success is one’s heart. If ye cannot give that, if ye cannot love music for music’s sake”--McIvor dropped into Scotchness at odd times; it was a sign of strong feeling--“ye’ll not be great. Ye certainly hae a fine organ for singin’; it’s a grand machine God has gi’en ye. But I know now what’s troublin’ me about your voice--the soul’s not there. An’ gi’en ye persist in wantin’ money first, the soul will not find its way in. Ye’ll be no true singer. It’s mechanical, that lovely big voice of ye, and it’ll move no man. What the true singer wants is to stir the hearts of people and send them awa’ to help the world, because his music has helped them. Would na’ ye like to do that?” Honor’s soft mouth was firm. “No,” she said. “I don’t care. I want their money.” McIvor shook his head. The girl stared at him. She was fearless and obstinate. Not easily did she let go a purpose. “Mr. McIvor,” she said at last, “you don’t understand. I’ve _got_ to make money. And my voice is my one way. Thank you for listening. You know everything, and I very little, but--people who can judge have told me I could do a lot with my voice--and I’m going to. You say yourself it’s a good--machine. I’ve--I’ve--” She was half sobbing with angry distress. Yet she was determined. “I’ve planned my career, and I’ll stick to it. I’ll succeed. I’ll make lots of money. You’ll see.” Suddenly she whirled and, springing down the steps, ran full tilt across the lawn to a break in the lattice, and dropping to the ground, slid through like a rabbit. McIvor looked up at Barron. The two men laughed a little, and then the musician sighed. “The poor baby,” he said. “She’s got so much, and she’s likely goin’ to throw it away. Money! At seventeen! An’ she with the face of a seraph and a voice out of ten million!” “Perhaps she’ll grow up. She’s only a baby,” Barron considered, and went on to explain a bit to the other how things were at the Mannerings, and the influences that had shaped the motherless girl. “If,” said McIvor, “she has the right stuff, life will come along some day with a big emotion, and money and such trash will go smash. And the world will get one of its great music-makers. But a singer without a soul is no good.”