CHAPTER X.
"The sun is all about the world we see, The breath and strength of very Spring; and we Live, love, and feed on our own hearts." The lights are burning low in the conservatory, soft perfumes from the many flowers fill the air.

From beyond--somewhere--( there is a delicious drowsy uncertainty about the where)--comes the sound of music, soft, rhymical, and sweet.

Perhaps it is from one of the rooms outside--dimly seen through the green foliage--where the lights are more brilliant, and forms are moving.

But just in here there is no music save the tinkling drip, drip of the little fountain that plays idly amongst the ferns.
Lady Baring is at home to-night, and in the big, bare rooms outside dancing is going on, and in the smaller rooms, tiny tragedies and comedies are being enacted by amateurs, who, oh, wondrous tale! do know their parts and speak them, albeit no stage "proper" has been prepared for them.

Perhaps that is why stage-fright is not for them--a stage as big as "all the world" leaves actors very free.
But in here--here, with the dainty flowers and dripping fountains, there is surely no thought of comedy or tragedy.