"Won't you sing?" he asked.
And without hesitation she began one of the simple familiar love
songs that were all the music to which the Sutherland girls had
access. She sang softly, in a deep sweet voice, sweeter even
than her speaking voice. She had the sunbonnet in her lap; the
moon shone full upon her face. And it seemed to him that he was
in a dream; there was nowhere a suggestion of reality--not of
its prose, not even of its poetry. Only in the land no waking
eye has seen could such a thing be. The low sweet voice sang of
love, the oars clicked rhythmically in the locks and clove the
water with musical splash; the river, between its steep hills,
shone in the moonlight, with a breeze like a friendly spirit
moving upon its surface. He urged her, and she sang another
song, and another. She sighed when she saw the red lantern on
the Carrollton wharf; and he, turning his head and seeing,
echoed her sigh.
"The first chance, you must sing me that song," she said.
"From `Rigoletto'? I will. But--it tells how fickle women
are--`like a feather in the wind.'. . . They aren't all like
that, though--don't you think so?"
"Sometimes I think everybody's like a feather in the wind,"
replied she. "About love--and everything."
He laughed. "Except those people who are where there isn't any wind."
CHAPTER XII
FOR some time Spenser had been rowing well in toward the
Kentucky shore, to avoid the swift current of the Kentucky River
which rushes into the Ohio at Carrollton.
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