On the following Saturday he took tea with Adeline at her lodgings. The train had been late, and by the time they were ready for the evening walk without which no visitor to the seaside calls the day complete, it was close upon nine o'clock. The beach was like a fair or a north-country wake. Conjurers, fire-eaters, and minstrels each drew an audience; but the principal attraction was a man and woman who wore masks and were commonly supposed to be distinguished persons to whom fate had been unkind. They had a piano in a donkey-cart, and the woman sang to the man's accompaniment. Just as Richard and Adeline came up, "The River of Years" was announced for performance.
"Let us listen to this," said Adeline.
They stood at the rim of the crowd. The woman had a rich contralto voice and sang with feeling, and her listeners were generous of both applause and coppers.
"I wonder who she is," Adeline murmured, with a touch of melancholy,—"I wonder who she is. I love that song."
"Oh, probably some broken-down concert-singer," Richard said curtly, "with a drunken husband."
"But she sang beautifully. She made me feel—you know—funny.... A lovely feeling, isn't it?" She looked up at him.
"Yes," he said, smiling at her.
"You're laughing."
"Indeed I'm not. I know what you mean perfectly well. Perhaps I had it just then, too—- a little. But the song is a bit cheap."