He described the Metropolitan Opera House, and the newer, finer one in Boston. She listened to his description of the music with flushed face and shining eyes. "How beautiful--that music! Can _you_ sing, Ollie?" "No," he admitted, "but I can play a little on a guitar. I wish I had one here." "I can sing," said the girl: "Miela says I can sing very well." He leaned toward her, brushing the blue feathers of her wing lightly with his hand. "Sing for me," he said softly. "I'll bet you sing beautifully." It may have been their situation, or what they had been through together, or the girl's nearness to him now with her long braids of golden hair, the graceful sweep of her blue-feathered wings that matched the blue of her eyes, her red lips parted in song--but whatever it was, Mercer thought he had never heard so sweet a voice. She sang a weird little song. It was in a minor key, with curious cadences that died away and ended nowhere--the folk song of a different race, a different planet, yet vibrant with the ever unsatisfied longing of the human soul. She sang softly, staring straight before her, without thought of her singing, thinking only of her song. She ended with a tender phrase that might have been a sigh--a quivering little half sob that died away in her throat and left the song unfinished. Her hands were folded quiet in her lap; her eyes gazed out on the gray waste of water about the boat. Mercer breathed again. "That is beautiful, Anina. What is it?" She turned to him and smiled. "Just love song. You like it, my friend Ollie?" "It's wonderful. But it's--it's so sad--and--and sort of weird isn't it?" "That is love, my mother says. Love is sad." Mercer's heart was beating fast. "Is it always sad, Anina? I don't think so--do you?" There was no trace of coquetry in her eyes; she sighed tremulously. "I do not know about love. But what I feel here"--she put her hand on her breast--"I do not understand, Ollie. And when I sing--they are very sad and sweet, the thoughts of music, and they say things to the heart that the brain does not understand. Is it that way with you?" Unnoticed by the two, a storm cloud had swept up over the horizon behind them, and the sky overhead was blotted now with its black. They had not seen it nor heeded the distant flashing of lightning. A sudden thunderclap startled them now into consciousness of the scene about them. The wind rushed on them from behind. The sea was rising rapidly; the boat scudded before it. "A storm! Look at it, Anina, behind us!" There was nothing in sight now but the gray sea, broken into waves that were beginning to curl, white and angry. Behind them the darkness was split with jagged forks of lightning. The thunder rolled heavily and ominously in the distance, with occasional sharp cracks near at hand. "Look, Anina--there comes the rain! See it there behind us! I hope it won't be a bad storm. I wouldn't want to be out in this little tub."