"Mine, or Shakespeare's," answered Zouche indolently; "Does it matter
which?"
Pequita laughed, and her cue being just then called, again she bounded
on to the stage; but this time she played her part, as the stock phrase
goes, 'to the gallery,' and did not once turn her eyes towards the
place where the King sat withdrawn into the shadow of his box, giving
no sign of applause. She, however, had caught sight of Sergius Thord
and some of her Revolutionary friends seated 'among the gods,' and that
was enough inspiration for her. Something,--a quite indefinable
something,--a touch of personal or spiritual magnetism, had been fired
in her young soul; and gradually as the Opera went on, her fellow-
players became infected by it. Some of them gave her odd, half-laughing
glances now and then,--being more or less amazed at the unusual vigour
with which she sang, in her pure childish soprano, the few strophes of
recitative and light song attached to her part;--the very prima-donna
herself caught fire,--and the distinguished tenor, who had travelled
all the way from Buda Pesth in haste, so that he might 'create' the
chief role in the work of his friend Valdor, began to feel that there
was something more in operatic singing than the mere inflation of the
chest, and the careful production of perfectly-rounded notes.
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