noon
This , mistaken for a merely perfunctory speech of self-depreciation , was received in polite , contradicting silence by the Guild . St. George , who had a rich , true barytone , quickly ran over his little list of possible songs , none of which he had ever sung to an audience that a canoe would not hold , or to other accompaniment than that of a mandolin . Partly in memory of those old canoe-evenings St. George broke into a low , crooning plantation melody . The song , like much of the Southern music , had in it a semi-barbaric chord that the college men had loved , something -- or so one might have said who took the canoe-music seriously -- of the wildness and fierceness of old tribal loves and plaints and unremembered wooings with a desert background : a gallop of hoof-beats , a quiver of noon light above saffron sand -- these had been , more or less , in the music when St. George had been wont to lie in a boat and pick at the strings while Amory paddled ; and these he must have reëchoed before the crowd of curious and sullen and commonplace , lighted by that one wild , strange face . When he had finished the dark woman sat with bowed head , and St. George himself was more moved by his own effort than was strictly professional . `` Dear Mr. St. George , '' said Mrs. Manners , going distractedly through her hand-bag for something unknown , `` our secretary will thank you formally . It was she who sent you our request , was it not ?