"For small mercies—" says Sir Mark, mildly.
"Nevertheless I'll try," says Dicky, valiantly, moving toward the piano.
"No don't, Dicky," exclaims Sir Mark, with tearful entreaty. "It would break my heart if Portia were to hear you for the first time at a disadvantage. 'I had rather than forty shillings you had your book of songs and sonnets here,' but as you haven't, why, wait till you have. Now," says Sir Mark, casting a warning look upon the others; "I've done my part—hold him tight, some of you, or he will certainly do it still."
"Oh! if you don't want to hear me," returns Dicky, with unruffled good humor. "Why can't you say so at once, without so much beating about the bush. I don't want to sing."
"Thank you, Dicky," says Sir Mark, sweetly.
Stephen is sitting close to Dulce, and is saying something to her in a low tone. Her answers, to say the least of them, are somewhat irrelevant and disconnected. Now she rises, and, murmuring to him a little softly-spoken excuse, glides away from him to the door, opens it, and disappears.
At this Portia, who has never ceased to watch her, grows even paler than she was before, and closes one hand so tightly on her fan that part of the ivory breaks with a little click.
Five minutes pass; to her they might be five interminable hours; and then, when she has electrified Mr. Browne by saying "yes" twice and "no" three times in the wrong places, she, too, gets up from her seat and leaves the room.
Before the fire in his own room Fabian is standing, with Dulce crying her heart out upon his breast. He has one arm around her, but his eyes are looking into a sad futurity, and he is gently, absently, tapping her shoulder with his left hand. He is frowning, not angrily, but thoughtfully, and there is an expression in his dark eyes that suggests a weariness of the flesh, and a longing to flee away and be at rest.