Monica laughed, but Randolph took the bantering speech quite gravely.
"I don't think I bore myself quite as much as other people bore me," he said.
"No," said Sidney quickly; "but there's one disadvantage one has to reckon with, and that is, that we can run away from other people, but never from ourselves."
"And self is a big tyrant sometimes," said Monica gravely.
"Now we're moralising," cried Sidney gaily; "let us come down to the lower lawn, it is so lovely close to the water."
"Bring your guitar down and sing to us," suggested Monica; "I hear so little music, and you know how much I love your singing."
Without any demur, Sidney slipped into the house for that instrument.
Randolph could not but enjoy the scene before him. It was a still soft moonlight night; the river rippled below, only making a slight lapping sound at the stone terrace wall. Roses climbed over a rustic fence—and flowering trees and shrubs seemed to scent the air around them. The old ship's guns looked strangely out of keeping on the soft turf, but chairs were drawn up round them, and Monica and Randolph took possession of them. Sidney sat on the broad low terrace wall. Without any hesitation or apology, she broke into song, and her voice, though not a powerful one, was wonderfully sweet and thrilling. She gave them a gay little troubadour song and an evening lullaby, then with her face towards the river and her back to them, she seemed to forget their presence, and sang her soul out in the following words: *
"This is the way of it, wide world over:
One is beloved, and one is the lover,
One gives and the other receives,
One lavishes all in a wild emotion,
One offers a smile for a life's devotion,
One hopes and the other believes,
One lies awake in the night to weep,
And the other drifts off in a sweet, sound sleep.
"One soul is aflame with a god-like passion,
One plays with love in an idler's fashion,
One speaks and the other hears,
One sobs 'I love you,' and wet eyes show it,
And one laughs lightly and says 'I know it,'
With smiles for the other's tears.
One lives for the other, and nothing beside,
And the other remembers the world is wide.
"This is the way of it, sad earth over:
The heart that breaks is the heart of the lover,
And the other learns to forget.
For what is the use of endless sorrow?
Though the sun goes down, it will rise to-morrow,
And life is not over yet.
Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other:
That passionate Love is Pain's own Mother!"
* From "Poems of Pleasure." Ella Wheeler Wilcox. (Gay & Hancock, Ltd.)