She did not wish a serious talk with her husband to-night, but she saw now that it was inevitable.
He said to her as he sat down beside her: "You sing very well indeed.
The song is full of meaning, and you bring it all out." "I am glad you like it," she responded conventionally.

"Of course it's an unusual song for an English drawing-room." "As you sing it, it would be beautiful and acceptable anywhere, Lali." "Thank you again," she answered, closing and unclosing her fan, her eyes wandering to where Mrs.Armour was.

She wished she could escape, for she did not feel like talking, and yet though the man was her husband she could not say that she was too tired to talk; she must be polite.

Then, with a little dainty malice: "It is more interesting, though, in the vernacular--and costume!" "Not unless you sang it so," he answered gallantly, and with a kind of earnestness.
"You have not forgotten the way of London men," she rejoined.
"Perhaps that is well, for I do not know the way of women," he said, with a faint bitterness.

"Yet, I don't speak unadvisedly in this,"-- here he meant to be a little bold and bring the talk to the past,--"for I heard you sing that song once before." She turned on him half puzzled, a little nervous.