"I perceive," said Lionel, handling the flute, "your friend is a maker of sweet sounds."
"Awake the echo."
"To hear is to obey, ma belle."
Whereupon Lionel, looking down at the face upturned to him as her head lay on the cushioned chair-back, or droops as she draws her fingers across the harp-strings; and with the fever of love hot within him he sang in his sweet tenor the songs of Italia with the passion of a living love breathing in their every note and word.
Thus song after song was softly sung, Vaura sometimes blending her voice with his, and he was so near, and it was an intoxicating hour; and Trevalyon, bound in honour not to speak his love, forgot that one of our poets, Sterne I think, says that "talking of love is making it," and sings on, as he drinks in fresh draughts from the warmth of her eyes, and her face is pale with emotion, her lips, that "thread of scarlet," and her neck, gleams in its whiteness as her bosom heaves with her quickened heart-beats, as she feels his meaning in his warm words; and fearing for herself, she is so sympathetic, and knows it is only because of the "difficulty," that he has not spoken, starts to her feet, laying her hand gently on his arm, says softly:
"You must be tired."
"Tired! no; this hour has been so perfect, my heart yearns for many such."
"See, my god-mother has deserted us unnoticed; ah! what a spell is there in music."
"The magnetism of your dear presence; ah, Circe! Circe what spells you weave," and there is a tender light in his eyes. She lets him look so, for a second, when she says gently, giving him her hand in good-night; "it would not do to leave you all the power of witchery," and she lets him put her hand through his arm and lead her to the foot of her stairs, where, with a silent hand-clasp they part for the night.
Dismissing her maid, whom she found asleep on the rug before the fire: