ABSTRACT
IT was past ten o’clock when Karyl Pendragon rose next morning. Unlike most actresses of her time, she never spent her mornings in bed, but was always down to a nine o’clock breakfast. On this occasion, however, she felt sleepier than usual, and resolved to lie an hour longer. Then she sprang up briskly, and, after her cold bath and gymnastic exercises, came singing down the stairs as blithe and wide awake as any lark. Singing was one of her exercises, and she performed it in a regular method, according to the way she had been taught, expanding her chest, drawing deep draughts of air into her lungs, and expending them in producing a strong, clear volume of sound. Her singing voice had not the extraordinary beauty of her speaking voice, but her range was large and her chest notes were 61very deep and full. There had once been a question of training for opera, but she had rejected it. She never cared for opera; it was not real enough for her. “People don’t sing when their hearts are breaking,” she had said, “or die in a cadenza.” So the career of prima donna had been abandoned; but the lessons she had received in the art of vocalization had been of immense service to her. She had learned to control and economize her breath, to use her voice continually without tiring or straining her larynx.
