"And you will sing me something?"
"If you like. Are you fond of singing!"
"Very. But for myself I have no voice worth hearing. I sing, you know, a little, which is my misfortune, not my fault; don't you think so?"
"Oh, no; because if you can sing at all—that is correctly, and without false notes—you must feel music and love it."
"Well for my part I hate people who sing a little. I always wish it was even less. I hold that they are a social nuisance, and ought to be put down by law. My eldest brother Nick sings really very well,—a charming tenor, you know, good enough to coax the birds off the bushes. He does all that sort of dilettante business,—paints, and reads tremendously about things dead and gone, that can't possibly advantage anybody. Understands old china as well as most people (which isn't saying much), and I think—but as yet this statement is unsupported—I think he writes poetry."
"Does he really?" asks Mona, with eyes wide open. "I am sure if I ever meet your brother Nick I shall be dreadfully afraid of him."
"Don't betray me, at all events. He is a touchy sort of fellow, and mightn't like to think I knew that about him. Jack, my second brother, sings too. He is coming home from India directly, and is an awfully good sort, though I think I should rather have old Nick after all."
"You have two brothers older than you?" asks Mona, meditatively.
"Yes; I am that most despicable of all things, a third son."
"I have heard of it. A third son would be poor, of course, and—and worldly people would not think so much of him as of others. Is that so?"