He took up her portfolio of loose music, and began turning over the sheets, as if seeking some particular song. She came to help him, and as she bent over the portfolio he whispered gently,—
"Can you contrive to slip away unobserved, and meet me in the shrubbery? I have something of the deepest importance to communicate."
She trembled, but it was with delight, as she whispered, "Yes."
"Plead fatigue, and retire after tea."
He then moved away, and approaching Violet asked her if she remembered the name of a certain Neapolitan canzonette, which her sister Blanche had sung the other night; and on receiving a negative sat down by her side, and entered into conversation with her.
All the rest of the evening he sat by Violet, only occasionally addressing indifferent questions to Blanche. Captain Heath seeing this, and noticing a strange agitation in Blanche's manner, which she in vain endeavoured to disguise, interpreted it according to his wishes, and sat down to a rubber at whist with great internal satisfaction.
"I have been thinking, Mr. Chamberlayne," said Meredith Vyner, shuffling the cards, "that even differences of pronunciation may assist your theory. Thus we English—a modest race—express our doubt by scepticism, deriving it from σκέψιϛ, deliberation. But the Scotch—a hard dogmatic race—pronounce it skeepticism, hereby deriving it from σκηψιϛ, intimating that a man leans upon his own opinion, and that his dissent from others is not a deliberation, but a walking-stick, wherewith he trudges onwards to the truth."
"Mr. Chamberlayne," said Mrs. Meredith Vyner, "are we not to have some music from you this evening? Come, one of your charming Spanish songs."
"By the way," said Vyner, while Cecil tuned his guitar, "talking of Spanish songs reminds me of a passage I met in a Spanish play this morning, in which the author says,
Sin zelos amor
Es estar sin alma el cuerpo.