Annette went to bed with glowing
cheeks, and a heart whose pulsations would have caused a
physician to prescribe unlimited digitalis.
It was still hot in New Orleans when she returned home, and it
seemed hard to go immediately to work. But if one is going to be
an opera-singer some day and capture the world with one's voice,
there is nothing to do but to study, study, sing, practise, even
though one's throat be parched, one's head a great ache, and
one's heart a nest of discouragement and sadness at what seems
the uselessness of it all. Annette had now a new incentive to
work; the fisherman had once praised her voice when she hummed a
barcarole on the sands, and he had insisted that there was power
in its rich notes. Though the fisherman had showed no cause why
he should be accepted as a musical critic, Annette had somehow
respected his judgment and been accordingly elated.
It was the night of the opening of the opera. There was the
usual crush, the glitter and confusing radiance of the brilliant
audience. Annette, with papa, Aunt Nina, and Philip, was late
reaching her box. The curtain was up, and "La Juive" was pouring
forth defiance at her angry persecutors. Annette listened
breathlessly. In fancy, she too was ringing her voice out to an
applauding house. Her head unconsciously beat time to the music,
and one hand half held her cloak from her bare shoulders.
Then Eleazar appeared, and the house rose at the end of his song.
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