CHAPTER VIIThe sea, the wind, the call of birds,The leaves that whisper, brooks that run,No song is ever void of words,To hearts that beat as one.
The sea, the wind, the call of birds,The leaves that whisper, brooks that run,No song is ever void of words,To hearts that beat as one.
The sea, the wind, the call of birds,The leaves that whisper, brooks that run,No song is ever void of words,To hearts that beat as one.
Sir Robert and Lady Seton were passing through Paris on their way to join thePhyllisin Mediterranean waters. They intended to cruise along the African coast, putting in a few days at Algiers, a week or so in Alexandria, and then go on to the Bosphorus, which possessed the charm of mirroring on its gracious bosom the minaretted city where a first cousin of “Uncle Bob” was representing his country at the Padishah’s Court.
The middle-aged couple were for the time being at the Meurice, occupying a suite of rooms replete with every comfort, and were at that very minute enjoying a thoroughly English breakfast in their sunny private dining-room. No such kickshaws for Uncle Bob as foamy chocolate and golden-coated rolls light as muslin, but soles fried in torment, with an accompaniment of oysters, truffles, mussels, and a seasoning of white wine; a portentous steak, humpbacked and juicy—as every self-respecting beefsteak should be—an omelette rouged into the semblance of a modern beauty by its filling of tomatoes, not to mention several other odorous trifles in the shape of grilled sardines and deviled kidneys.
Lady Seton was already armored from head to foot in well-cut serviceable tweeds, similar in texture and color to those which adorned her lord’s portly form. She believed in frilly dressing-gowns and coquettish morningcoiffures no more than did Sir Robert in over-dainty breakfasts. Solidity, in costly disguise, was what they both preferred.
Ensconced behind the pages of theLondon Times, Sir Robert was seated squarely before his well-filled plate, and while perusing the news of two days before with the greatest interest, methodically carried his fork to his mouth, and back again for fresh supplies. His wife, without sparing herself a bite, was getting through a pile of letters just arrived, leaning each one in turn against the toast-rack as she read, while “Lady Hamilton”—a sadly obese toy spaniel, and her mistress’s darling pet—sat gravely on a cushioned chair beside her, gloating with all her large, moist eyes over a near-by dish of cake.
“The Prime Minister,” Sir Robert remarked, in an aggrieved tone, “has put his veto upon the interference of Great Britain in—” He glanced round the edge of the paper, noticed his wife’s total inattention, murmured to himself something concerning feminine frivolity, followed by a grumbled conjecture as to whether the Premier realized that he was a public servant, or imagined himself the autocrat of all the Englands, and finally relapsed into ominous silence.
Just then a servant, so prehistorically dignified as to suggest the Stone Age, moved noiselessly from the door to Sir Robert’s elbow, where he stood like a statue, disdainful of employing the typical “cough-behind-the-hand” manner of disclosing his presence, until the shadow of his admirably nourished body falling athwart the sacred pages of theTimesdid this for him.
“What is it, Berkley?” Sir Robert asked, testily; he abhorred being disturbed at breakfast. “Has anything gone wrong?”
“No, Sir Robert—that is, yes, in a way, Sir Robert; there is a—er—gentleman to see you, Sir Robert, in the reception-room.”
“A gentleman to see me in the reception-room at eleven o’clock!” Sir Robert exclaimed. “Did he send up a card?”
“No, Sir Robert, leastways not that I know of. The chassewer down-stairs”—Berkley was no French scholar—“sent up the name only, by the page.”
“Well—confound it!—what is the name?”
“Mr. Preston Wynne,” Berkley stated.
“Young Wynne! God bless my soul! Why didn’t you say so at first? Show him up immediately, Berkley. Why, you’ve seen him fifty times at Seton Park. Show him up—of course if you don’t mind, my dear,” he concluded, addressing his wife, who nodded consent without discontinuing her reading.
In a moment Mr. Preston Wynne was warmly shaking hands with Sir Robert, after which he reverently touched the extended tips of Lady Seton’s fingers, bowed, and accepted a chair facing the one where “Lady Hamilton” was now enjoying the audible slumber of the corpulent.
“I hope I am not too early,” he said, beamingly. “You know I wanted to catch you before you left the hotel for your constitutional, Sir Robert. I remember your habits, you see!”
“Not a bit too early, my dear boy,” Sir Robert said, with unwonted geniality. “I did not know you were in Paris, though. When did you arrive?”
“Oh, a week ago or thereabouts. Grandma Wynne was set on being here for Ethel’s wedding, and so I brought her over. She’s the most indefatigable old lady in Christendom!” he concluded, with a laugh that revealed a double row of strong white teeth as regular as if they had been carved by machinery.
He was what Aunt Elizabeth called “a very personable youth,” was this well-bred transatlantic, not very tall—say five foot nine—but well built, well groomed, well dressed, and with a pair of keen, gray-green eyes, and asleek head of pleasingly red-brown hair. Moreover, being the only son of a many-sided father, who had added greatly to a vast inherited fortune by old-fashioned and unexceptionable means, he was of some weight in the cosmopolitan world of the day, amid which he moved at ease and with a delightful buoyancy. He had met the Setons at Villefranche a couple of seasons earlier, and, extraordinary to record, had found such favor in Aunt Elizabeth’s eyes that an invitation to shoot at Seton Park had followed. It was there that he had met and fallen in love with Laurence, to whom he had proposed. That young lady, dazzled by his wealth, his prospects, his father’s magnificent steam-yacht—anchored at the time in the Solent—and perhaps attracted also by the young man’s inexhaustible good temper and humorous aplomb, had been on the point of accepting him. Her infatuation for Neville Moray had, however, stayed her on the brink of a very desirable union. But she had, nevertheless, left him sufficient hope for the future to make the announcement of her marriage to Basil a very great surprise indeed. In spite of this he did not seem particularly broken-hearted this morning, as he sat in the full light of the windows smoking one of Sir Robert’s best smuggled cigarettes. Lady Seton had retired to put on her hat, and the two men were alone.
“Have you already seen my niece?” asked Sir Robert, who (it may as well be admitted at once) could never face a situation of any awkwardness without immediately feeling called upon to put both his large, well-shaped feet through and through it.
“Yes, at a distance,” Wynne replied, blowing three successive rings of blue smoke in front of him, and with such dexterity that they interlocked and floated away amiably linked to one another.
“The day after my arrival I saw her driving in the Bois wrapped to the eyes in amazing sables, and behinda pair of Orloffs that made my mouth water, I assure you. Two nights later I glimpsed her at the opera wearing a diadem and triple necklace of rubies and diamonds fit for an empress. But in neither case did she appear to recognize my humble personality.”
Sir Robert shook his head gloomily. “I am afraid,” he remarked, “that she is having her brain turned by the adulation with which she is surfeited. Personally, I wish she had married you instead of Prince Palitzin, although I am bound to state that he is a fine man, and has behaved toward her with the utmost generosity.”
Preston Wynne half rose, put his hand on his heart, and bowed with gay appreciation of the compliment.
“I am,” he pronounced, “flattered indeed that you should have been inclined to prefer me to one of Europe’s greatest personages. But, frankly, I cannot understand why you ever did such a thing.”
Sir Robert smiled. He possessed, alas! no sense of humor whatsoever, but somehow or other he liked what he termed the quaint ways of this youthful friend.
“Laurence,” he proceeded to expound, “is a curious girl. Not English in the least. Of course you know that we are one of those Catholic families who have never given up the ‘Old Faith,’ but that has nothing to do with it. Our blood is British—just so—and where that child has fished her very peculiar characteristics from is more than I can explain. At any rate, she was never quite one of us—as I frequently tell her aunt—a regrettable circumstance. She might have madeyoua good wife. You are a sensible chap, you see, who would stand no nonsense, I’m sure. But Prince Basil is quite another affair. He belongs to that class of foreign nobles whom we cannot help but admire, insular though we may be, but who should decidedly wed their own women; admirable creatures; trained to suit them and the high position they occupy. Between you and me, my dear fellow, thefeminine portion of our Anglo-Saxon race is rapidly becoming too emancipated, too free and easy, too assured of what they are pleased to call their rights—an attitude, let me add, which will gradually lead to the disclassing of the higher orders. It has already begun to do so, and soon the British great lady of old will have totally disappeared. Indeed, we have examples....”
“Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!” the American quoted to himself, continuing to follow his host’s arguments with a profound and most flattering solemnity of aspect.
“Examples,” Sir Robert continued, “which have shown us that blue blood no longer counts for much; that, in short, coronets, time-honored and valiantly won in the glorious past, can be doffed in favor of the red cap of revolution,—sported on the tail of a cart, whence their fair wearers shriek themselves hoarse in the unwashed cause of Socialism.”
Mr. Wynne, still listening politely, was beginning to wonder where Sir Robert was heading.
“Yes,” he put in, dubiously—“yes, of course you are entirely right, but your niece is scarcely of the kind you refer to, and she will without the possibility of a doubt grace the high estate in which she now finds herself. She very naturally preferred becoming a Serene-Highness to being plain Mrs. Wynne of Nowhere in particular; and who can blame her? She was born to the purple; one can see it at a glance.”
Sir Robert rose, walked over to the fire, planted himself on the rug, and, with both hands under his coat-tails, surveyed the speaker.
“I’m glad to see you take it like that!” he stated, thinking within himself of Neville Moray’s visible melancholy when he had met him at a levee some two weeks after Laurence’s wedding. “There’s never any use,” he resumed, “in crying over derailed love-affairs, and thisbeing so, I wish you’d come and dine with us here to-night. You’ll meet the Palitzins and some Breton friends of Laurence’s, the Marquis and Mademoiselle de Plenhöel. They are near relatives of Prince Basil, and it was at their château in Brittany that Laurence first met her husband.”
Wynne rose and drew on his left glove before answering. He wanted just that infinitesimal space of time to make up his mind, and when he had accomplished this task the trick was done.
“Thank you very much, Sir Robert. I’ll come with pleasure if you’ll let me,” he said, smiling. “Good morning, Lady Seton. I’m off!” he added as, turning, he found himself face to face with her fur-wrapped figure. “Sir Robert has been good enough to invite me for to-night, and so, as the saying is over here, ‘Au plaisir, madame, de vous revoir.’”
He was gone, and in all the majesty of her matronly disapproval Lady Seton bore down upon her husband.
“I am amazed at you, Robert, really amazed! What could induce you to invite that poor young man with Laurence and Basil? I trust you may have thought of asking Captain Moray to be here also. It would really insure the success of the party!” she concluded, sarcastically.
Sir Robert’s Olympian brow reddened—his brow always became Olympian the moment his wife appeared upon the scene.
“You are wholly correct,” he said, stiffly, “for that is exactly what I have done!”
Lady Seton raised her muff toward heaven—a painted one, with a Greek key pattern and cupids disporting themselves among roses in merry French fashion—let the muff sink to the level of her somewhat flat waist, and sat abruptly down on “Lady Hamilton,” who awoke with a smothered groan of surprise and pain.
“My Heaven! What have I done?” shrieked the lady,getting on her feet again with surprising agility. “Oh, my poor, poor lovey!” she moaned, hugging the fat, wheezing little dog to her fur bosom. “Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“Stop that nonsense, Elizabeth!” Sir Robert, more Olympian than ever, reproved her. “You couldn’t hurt the brute if you tried. Why, she’s like a feather pillow—most unsportsmanlike to overfeed her as you do. And now please attend to me,” he continued, austerely, easing with a square-toed finger the uncompromisingly angular collar around his neck. “I asked Moray, as I told you, and now I’ve asked Wynne to dine—that’s an accomplished fact. But what I wish to impress upon you is that, Princess or no Princess, I don’t propose to be made to feel like a child in my own house.” He cast a masterful look at the topsy-turvy cupids gamboling above his head, but did not trouble to smile at the idea of having claimed them and the attached hostelry as his own. “If Laurence has so little tact and monde as to be annoyed because she meets her old flames at our table, let her be annoyed; I don’t care a fig about it. So that’s clear, is it not?”
He set his foot with an air of extreme finality upon the hearth-rug, volte-faced, and strode to the door to meet his hat, coat, and cane in the hands of the rigid Berkley; leaving his wife, in one of her most acid moods, to follow behind.
The dinner-table that night was set with all the luxury that money can suggest to French taste, and it was difficult to realize that the silver and crystal, the porcelain and flowers, had not been preordained and arranged by the especial orders of a distinguished hostess. As Sir Robert said, condescendingly, “They manage these things very well in Paris.” Contrary to what Lady Seton had anticipated, a cheerful merriment held the guests from the moment they sat down, and soon the conversation—never failing in genial humor—actually rose to the higher level of wit. This was due chiefly to Basil and to youngWynne, who seemed—much to Laurence’s annoyance and surprise—to hit it off from the first. Lady Seton, usually what her husband described as a “damper,” became as nearly responsive to the pleasing atmosphere of the occasion as was possible for her to be, while Sir Robert, to everybody’s astonishment, plunged headlong—after the fish—into excellent yachting anecdotes. Tubbed and razored, and shedding cheerful waves of bay-rum and hair tonic about him, his ample shirt-front embellished by two large pearls gleaming like moons through mist, he expanded more and more as the well-conceived menu fulfilled its alluring promises, and cast glances of roseate satisfaction around the board. “Elizabeth is a fool!” he commented, inwardly. “They’re all enjoying themselves like periwinkles at high tide.... By the way, she’s got herself up to his Majesty’s taste, has Elizabeth. She’s positively scratched five years off her age.” And so she had. For on occasions of ceremony, in spite of her Galliphobe tendencies, Lady Seton knew not only how to buy, but how to wear a Parisian gown of the best Place Vendome make, besides which her neck and arms were still more than presentable, and her jewels magnificent. Had there possibly lurked in her mind a desire to eclipse Laurence’s bridal splendors? But who is to gauge the possibilities of a feminine brain, old or young? At any rate, to quote Sir Robert, as far as “get up” went, she was easily ahead of her niece by several lengths; for the faint pink of the bride’s crêpe-de-Chine, looped up with natural Bengal roses, was of Basil’s selection, and therefore its exquisite simplicity paled before her aunt’s gold-laminated brocades and zibline-bordered train.
Marguerite—who never cared much for what she wore—was, as usual, in white, something soft and clinging, with an almost imperceptible current of pearl and silver embroidery frosting its graceful folds; on the left shoulder a cluster of her namesake flowers, fastened by an antiquesilver Breton heart-and-crown, and about her throat on a slender silver thread a silver fleur-de-lys.
So “young girlish”—si délicieusement jeune fille!Basil had thought, as he had glanced furtively at her on her arrival. Now he did not dare to let his eyes wander in her direction, remembering the scene with Laurence only too well. Marguerite was placed diagonally opposite to him—the place of honor was occupied by the British Ambassadress, a handsome woman of fifty or so, whose blond bandeaux retained the silky brilliance that had caused her for many years to be known to her friends by the charming nickname of “Rose d’or,”—and above the yellow and lilac orchids of the surtout he trusted himself only to watch the “Gamin’s” strong little hands, playing with her knife and fork as though she were attending a schoolroomdinetteinstead of one of her first formal dinner-parties.
Beside her sat Neville Moray, a trifle too silent and contemplative, but still smiling amiably, and Preston Wynne, from his place by the Ambassadress, caught and passed the ball of gay chatter with Basil and “Antinoüs,” his next neighbor. Both were highly amused by his sallies as he related to them a recent trip to Sonora, where the elder Wynne owned a beautiful hacienda. Mexicanhaut-faitswere related in vividly picturesque language, dotted now and again with Spanish names and expletives of a gracious canority, while when the narrator dropped into plain United States his discourse became variegated with cowboy vernacular that brought tears of laughter to all eyes.
“We’re a queer lot, aren’t we?” Wynne was saying. “A regular hodgepodge,believe me! You’ve got to sift the sheep from the goats if you want to have a good time, though I am bound to say that the sheep are not, by a long shot, the most amusing of the two—except when they are mountain-sheep with a lot of kick in them! As tothe Dons, they are not half bad, keen as mustard, plucky as they make ’em, and with no genuine harm in them if one knows how to handle the breed. Give me a revoluting Mexican first, next, and always, in preference to some of our hand-raised products, made in Germany, for instance.”
“You have a lot of Germans out there, haven’t you? So have we in Russia, alas!” Basil interposed with a wry smile.
“Yes, Germans are Germans,” Wynne replied. “We don’t cotton to ’em much, but when fresh off the farm they are all right enough in their way. It’s the Germo-American I object to. He who is either born in America, or imported at little cost and so tender an age that he mistakes himself for one of us. We have specimens worth the price of admission, just for the privilege of ogling them. There’s one peacherino I especially admire—a big bug, too, you bet! He came over when he was a little shaver, and began his industrial career as a sausage-peddler out West. He knew a thing or two, though, and little by little he came to own a butcher shop, then two, then three—like the boy who started in by selling sand to grocers to put in the sugar—and ended in a lake-shore palace and the smartest set. Well, this ambitious butcher I’m speaking of finally went into the cattle business—wholesale, on the hoof, and all that, you know—until, having made a pile as high as Chimborazo, he housed his family in marble halls and let madame and her young uns have their fling. Nothing was too good for them—an art-gallery filled with masterpieces, a music-room where the most expensive musicanders were heard. Plush liveries placarded with fine gold for the servants—we don’t say help any more, even out West; we’ve found out the fallacy of it—motor-cars from France, a steam-yacht on the lake—they refuse themselves nothing, and their only shame is that old German father of the whole shooting-match,who has not risen with his fortunes! He is a holy show, it’s a fact, slouching about in an aged overcoat and a shabby soft hat, up at five every morning and sneaking out of his castle to do what? Bet you’d never guess! Why, just as a matter of habit to go to the stock-yards and with his own hands slaughter a hog. It has become second nature to him, and he swears it gives him an appetite for breakfast.”
Sir Robert, who had been neglecting his charming neighbors, burst into a roar of laughter.
“To kill a hog! To kill a ...” he choked, crimson with appreciation. “Marble halls, hogs—help!” he gurgled on. “You are a queer chap, Wynne! I like you!”
“So do I, Sir Robert,” was the prompt reply. “I was afraid my little story might have shocked everybody.”
“Nonsense,” the Baronet protested. “Give us some more of your experiences, do! You take life as it should be taken—on its jolly side. It’s the right way.”
Laurence’s hazel eyes fixed themselves reproachfully upon her uncle.Shedid not feel inclined to praise Preston Wynne’s gaiety. A man jilted by her should have displayed a fitter regret for what he had lost, and, seeking consolation, she turned toward Neville, who, at least, knew what was due her better than to laugh and joke; but, lo and behold, this distinguished young officer was deep in conversation with Marguerite, who looked exasperatingly pretty. There was Basil, too—her own wedded husband—talking and enjoying himself just as if she had never made him a scene and tried to make him squirm! Her fingers closed brutally upon the Sèvres handle of her fruit-knife. Was her power over the stronger sex on the wane? That would be agreeable! In that case she might as well go and bury herself in the snows of Tverna, as Basil had hinted that very morning it might be wise for them to do. He had patiently explained that the peasantry onthis particular estate was being rendered restless by agitators andkabàkorators. Her exasperating reflections were, however, cut short by the signal from Lady Seton, which brought everybody to their feet. Bowing for once to Continental etiquette, she had picked up both men and women with her eyes, and therefore all assembled together in the adjoining salon, where coffee, liqueurs, and cigarettes awaited them before a brilliant fire.
Strangely enough, it was Basil who appeared at home beneath Sir Robert and Lady Seton’s temporary roof-tree, not Laurence; for, disinteresting herself utterly from her relatives and their guests, she withdrew to a side-table and began to turn over the periodicals and papers with which it was littered; her air and expression one of mournful detachment, as if she had long since discovered that the gilding of a cake may, after all, mark but indigestible dough, and was trying to resign herself to this unwholesome diet with angelic patience.
Greatly intrigued by this strange attitude, “Antinoüs” approached her.
“You seem tired,chère madame. Will it weary you further if I take a seat here and converse with you?” He was speaking with well-feigned sympathy.
“Not in the least, Monsieur de Plenhöel,” she answered, drawing her skirts aside to make room for him on the foot of the lounge to which she had retreated. She did not see that he was considering her out of the corner of an extraordinarily mocking eye.
“What I admire,” he was thinking, “are the transports of joy with which she hails the reappearance of her uncle and aunt upon the tapis.” But aloud he said, gently, “You remind me of one of our Brittany wild roses to-night, madame.”
“Why wild?” she questioned, her eyes softening at the broad hint of compliment. “I am very tame, I assure you.”
“Really!” he smiled. “One would scarcely connect you with tameness. You are a pronounced personality, and such rarely submit to dulling influences.”
She raised her pliant figure from the cushions among which she had been nestling. “You think that?” she murmured, well pleased. “I was afraid I was beginning to drift with the tide.”
“A tide of well-deserved success!” he asserted, his blue glances flooding her with admiration. “You are a happy woman, madame, for at the touch of your wand a kingdom has been flung at your little feet.”
“A kingdom!” she scoffed, looking at him between her lashes. “Scarcely that!”
“A kingdom of infinite love and tenderness!” Régis de Plenhöel explained in a suddenly altered tone.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Is that what you mean?”
“It is—or rather, it was a minute ago; for now I perceive that our modern Titania is not satisfied with such a realm alone. Fortunately, however, yours is not comprised within the mere compass of a human heart—golden though it be—and I feel sure that you will wield your scepter in right royal fashion.”
“You like hyperbole?” she retorted, with some pique. “Or has your kinsman commissioned you to plead a cause already won?”
“I am a free-lance, madame, in the Field of the Cloth of Gold, or in that of Clémence Isaure, at your service or your choice. But, seeing you lost in dreams, I ventured to come and offer my belated congratulations, since the other night you were so surrounded that I did not get a chance to speak to you.”
“I accept them all the more gratefully, as it was in your house that my good luck came to me, Monsieur le Marquis!”
“Don’t mention it!” retorted Régis, dropping all poetry of tone as if he had suddenly been stung by a bee.“Besides, if you have any one to thank, address yourself to the ‘Gamin,’ your eternal and loyal champion.”
“I was not aware that I needed one!” was the spirited answer; and Laurence let her swiftly hardening eye travel to the piano, at which Marguerite had just seated herself. Neville and Preston Wynne stood on either side of her, imploring her to sing, and she was smiling up at them.
“Don’t let yourself be implored!” her father called across to her. “You are not yet grown up enough for that. Let us have‘Pauvre P’tit Gas!’ mon ‘Gamin’!”
Obediently Marguerite pulled off her long white gloves and began to play a prelude in minor that seemed a lost echo of stormy seas, filled now with the voices of great waves against a rock-bound coast, and again with the sweep of the wind in the rigging of a doomed ship.
Complete and absolute silence fell upon the room at the first notes of her surprisingly deep contralto:
“Nul ne connût jamais son âge!Son nom? Ma foi, pas davantage!Sa famille? Il n’en avait pas!On l’avait trouvé sur la plage...Pauvre P’tit Gas!”
“Nul ne connût jamais son âge!Son nom? Ma foi, pas davantage!Sa famille? Il n’en avait pas!On l’avait trouvé sur la plage...Pauvre P’tit Gas!”
Her extraordinary voice gave a strange pathos to the simple little song, and sent a shiver between Basil’s shoulders. Preston and Neville had fallen back and stood motionless, shoulder to shoulder, listening intently to verse after verse of the quaintcomplainte:
“Lorsque la mer était mauvaiseIl chantait, le cour plus à l’aise,Gité, malgré vents et frimas,Dans un abri de la falaise...Pauvre P’tit Gas!”
“Lorsque la mer était mauvaiseIl chantait, le cour plus à l’aise,Gité, malgré vents et frimas,Dans un abri de la falaise...Pauvre P’tit Gas!”
Down went the accompaniment a full octave; distant bells seemed to mingle with the score. One could discernthe sobbing at the sea now, the pulsing of the tide, rising, rising, till with a swelling rush it submerged the reefs.
“Or un soir la vague en furie....”
“Or un soir la vague en furie....”
Marguerite had long since forgotten where she was. She was singing as she had so often done on the cliffs of Plenhöel, and herPauvre P’tit Gaswas as real to her as he had seemed then:
“Malgré les brisants et l’orageIl attint la côte à la nagePuis il mourut ... tant était las!...Pauvre P’tit Gas!”
“Malgré les brisants et l’orageIl attint la côte à la nagePuis il mourut ... tant était las!...Pauvre P’tit Gas!”
Slower and slower came the words:
“Il fut pleuré dans les ténèbres....Pauvre P’tit Gas!Pauvre P’tit Gas!”
“Il fut pleuré dans les ténèbres....Pauvre P’tit Gas!Pauvre P’tit Gas!”
At the last wailing chords she seemed to awaken, rose, and faced swiftly round, in evident surprise to see them all there, but utterly unconscious of the prodigious effect created. A little smile played hide-and-seek beneath “Antinoüs’s” mustache;hehad heard her sing that before; but the rest had not, and the spell seemed unbroken for a full minute before the applause began. The girl, startled and embarrassed, looked around in a long glance of astonishment, and met Basil’s eyes fixed upon hers in a manner she had never seen before; but when the others surrounded her with enthusiastic expressions of delight he remained where he had stood during her singing, and did not speak.