"Don't ask me," she objects, languidly. "It is so long since I have sung that I scarcely know any song correctly. Harriet will tell you I rarely if ever touch the piano."
"But you must," I persist. "Break down if you will, only let me hear your voice. Remember there are no ungenerous critics here, and nobody's singing pleases me so much as yours."
"Do, Miss Beatoun," says some one.
It is Chandos. He and Marmaduke have come in through the open window, and are now standing in its embrasure, framed in by the hanging curtains on either side.
The tone of his voice strikes me as being odd. He is looking eagerly, fixedly at her; will she refuse this sudden unexpected request of his? Coming after his late coldness it surprises even me.
Bebe raises to his a face smiling, but pale.
"Well yes, I will sing you something," she says, and taking my place, strikes a few lingering chords.
"I have no music with me," she continues, with her face turned from us, "so you must be satisfied with what overcomes first to me." Then she begins:—-
'Along the grass sweet airs are sown Our way, this day in spring Of all the songs that we have known, Now which one shall we sing? Not that, my love, ah! no; Not this? my love? why so? Yet both were ours, yet hours will come and go. The branches cross above our eyes, The skies are in a net, And what's the thing beneath the skies We two would most forget? Not birth, my love, no, no, Not death, my love, no, no; The love once ours, but ours long hours ago.'"
As she comes to the last line, a curious wild sadness that is almost despair, mingles with the petulant defiance that has hitherto characterised her tone. And the music, where has she got it—so weird, so pathetic, so full of passionate recklessness.