"I don't know," she admitted, "whether it is music or not. But it is something alive." She fell into a muse, "Queer, what a spider-web of tenuous complication human relationships are. I never would have thought, probably, of trying anything of the sort if it hadn't been for a childhood recollection. . . . French incarnation this time," she said lightly to Marsh. "When I was a little girl, a young priest, just a young parish priest, in one of the poor hill-parishes of the Basque country, began to teach the people of his parish really to sing some of the church chants. I never knew much about the details of what he did, and never spoke to him in my life, but from across half the world he has reached out to touch this cornet of America. By the time I was a young lady, he had two or three big country choruses under his direction. We used to drive up fist to one and then to another of those hill-towns, all white-washed houses and plane-tree atriums, and sober-eyed Basques, to hear them sing. It was beautiful. I never have had a more complete expression of beauty in all my life. It seemed to me the very soul of music; those simple people singing, not for pay, not for notoriety, out of the fullness of their hearts. It has been one of the things I never forgot, a standard, and a standard that most music produced on platforms before costly audiences doesn't come up to." "I've never been able to make anything out of music, myself," confessed Mr. Welles. "Perhaps you can convert me. I almost believe so." "'Gene Powers sings!" cried Marise spiritedly. "And if he does . . ." "Any relation to the lively old lady who brings our milk?" "Her son. Haven't you seen him yet? A powerfully built granite rock of a man. Silent as a granite rock too, as far as small talk goes. But he turns out to have a bass voice that is my joy. It's done something for him, too, I think, really and truly, without sentimental exaggeration at all. He suffered a great injustice some six or seven years ago, that turned him black and bitter, and it's only since he has been singing in our winter choir that he has been willing to mix again with anyone."